Not just another penguin flick — director Werner Herzog turns Antarctic nature documentary into a meditation on humanity
Werner Herzog's documentary Encounters at the End of the World opens on the loud, cramped cargo plane transporting the director and his fellow travellers to Antarctica. Seconds into his introductory monologue, he jokes about his refusal to make “another penguin documentary” when negotiating with the producers of this film. Later on, he's led to a man who has forsaken the company of people to live with penguins, and the unusual tack he takes with the interview exemplifies the intent of the film. Perhaps it's his dignified German accent, but Herzog is probably one of the only people in the world who could ask “do penguins experience insanity?” and still sound erudite and intellectual. What the derangement of penguins eventually makes clear is that Encounters isn't a nature documentary at all. Like Herzog’s award-winning Grizzly Man, it's a study of spirituality, psychology and humanity's indomitable drive to understand. It's about people.
If Herzog's snapshot is to be believed, everyone living in McMurdo Station, one of Antarctica's population centres, has a deceptively quotidian appearance and an incredibly interesting life story. A graying forklift driver in a drab down jacket reveals himself to be a doctor of philosophy. This man offers eloquent credos throughout the film that quietly underscore Herzog's analysis, though the rest of the talking heads certainly don't lack for eccentricity. There's a linguist-cum-botanist who gave up his former profession after being forced to let an ancient dialect die because of an academic dispute, a geologist who speaks like a Robert Frost poem and a physicist who believes that measuring neutrinos will help him understand the nature of the spirit world. And, of course, an insane penguin.
Like Herzog himself, Encounters has a deep intelligence that prevents all of the mad tangents from coming off like the ramblings of a Mayan spirit guide, but it's this quality that might keep some from enjoying film. By the end, it's clear that Herzog is tying his movie together with a holistic, secular approach to spirituality, which is a tough idea to absorb no matter how many letters follow your name. For anyone who's given a large portion of their time over to thoughts like these, Encounters will resonate beautifully. Others — through no fault of their own — may find themselves left out in the cold.
