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Tuesday, Apr 29, 2008 8:00 PM
Werner Herzog documents the residents of McMurdo Station on Ross Island, Antarctica during austral summer and the icy depths that surround them.
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99 minutes
Directed by: Werner Herzog
East Coast Premiere
Presented by JetBlue Airways
For the most part, Werner Herzog's films draw upon the same underlying elements: outsider protagonists battling against Nature or society, strange zealots whose unwavering determination and need to conquer ultimately destroys them. These characters are seduced and then destroyed by Nature: Timothy Treadwell is devoured by the creatures he is closest to in GRIZZLY MAN; Aguirre's titular conquistador is descended upon by monkeys and swept away in the current of the river he set out to claim.
Herzog's newest film, ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, offers a reinterpretation of these themes. As suggested by its title, the film documents Antarctica and its unusual creatures, people, and places. Set at the U.S. operated McMurdo Station on Ross Island, the film visits scientific research facilities and natural landscapes to capture the continent's majestic and otherworldly beauty. While the overwhelming visuals dominate every frame, it is the interactions with the characters that color these encounters. Whether they are zoologists, Antarctic divers, philosophers or plumbers, the same idiosyncratic eccentrics that characterize Herzog's narrative feature films gravitate toward him here.
Though the film is almost eschatological, Herzog narrates and interviews subjects in his typically jocular manner. The scientists and field experts featured are utterly engaging - one can observe how this South Pole commune of real-life Fitzcarraldos and Kaspar Hausers provides an infinitely fascinating study for a director who is obsessed with obsession, the insane, and the concept of the "other." ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD is a perfect meditation on Herzog's haunting themes.
-Daniel Barnum-Swett
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