Encounters at the End of the World
Studio: ThinkFilm, Image Entertainment
Rated: G
Director: Werner Herzog
WorkNameSort: Encounters at the End of the World
Filmmaker Werner Herzog is legendary for his tireless quests to capture mankind’s attempt to conquer the unconquerable. From the title character, a Spanish soldier, in Aguirre, the Wrath of God who makes a ruthless march toward the city of gold to the real-life jungle prisoner Dieter Dengler in Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Herzog’s subjects first must be humbled before they can be redeemed. Of all Herzog’s locations, the harsh snowbanks of Antarctica could have brought his crew to their knees in record time, but in the documentary Encounters at the End of the World, there’s a twist that swiftly counters Herzog’s instincts: Mankind’s industrial supremacy has not excluded the South Pole.
The opening shot is breathtaking: We see a scuba diver floating in heavenly sky-blue water. Above his head is ice as thick as concrete. The diver has no tether to life on the surface and a compass is (literally) pointless at the bottom of the world. He must rely on his internal navigation.
THE WORLD
(G)
Divine orbs dominate the screen as a dulcet choir drives the pearly-gate metaphor home, only here it’s the primates who wield celestial power. Herzog takes us to an endless volcano pit, its gases distorting the sun into a Star of David. Scientists release a helium balloon 17 miles into the stratosphere to capture neutrinos, which should be impossible. A jarring dynamite blast interrupts a pensive moment and, when the dust clears, researchers have created a perfect circle in the ice so they can get back into the deadly water.
Herzog is most fascinated with the workers who maintain the factory on ice. They’re academics and poets thrust into day labor and sleeping on the floor by their own choice. (One employee’s title is Philosopher/Forklift Driver.) The isolated crew watch science-fiction flicks like Them! as preparation for the sometimes terrifying sea life awaiting them in the freezing water. They import photos, keepsakes and samples from around the Earth into a tomblike time capsule in an ice tunnel, leaving clues for future civilizations.
The company men are cursed with total self-awareness, a crushing end-of-humanity realism. (Climate change is mentioned but not harped upon.) We’re doomed, they agree, so we’d better hurry up and work, drilling holes in the habitat and helping to land jet planes in the frozen country.
“We’re traveling with Odysseus,” says a grizzled worker, claiming common cause with the Greek hero associated with brains, brawn and bravery in the face of the impossible. But Herzog’s subjects aren’t fighting against nature, they’re giving it a pummeling. This time, it’s man’s primal urge to explore new territory that must be staved off.
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2008.