Encounters at the End of the World (2007)

User Rating:

8.2/10   

Director:

Werner Herzog

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

Filmmaker Werner Herzog travels to Antarctica to capture its landscape's rarely seen beauty on film.

Plot Keywords:

Bus | Penguin | Diver | Antarctica | Survival Guide

US Showtimes:

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Cast

Ryan Andrew Evans	...	Himself - Production Cook
Werner Herzog	...	Narrator

Directed by
Werner Herzog

Produced by
Phil Fairclough	....	executive producer
David S. Harding	....	executive producer
Julian Hobbs	....	executive producer
Henry Kaiser	....	producer
Andrea Meditch	....	executive producer
Erik Nelson	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Henry Kaiser
David Lindley

Cinematography by
Peter Zeitlinger

Film Editing by
Joe Bini

Sound Department
Werner Herzog	....	sound

Visual Effects by
Christopher Dusendschon	....	digital imaging supervisor: iO FILM

Editorial Department
Danica Barnes	....	on-line editor
Bartholomew Burcham	....	assistant editor
Ryan Delk	....	first assistant editor
Brian Hutchings	....	colorist: Alpha Dogs, Inc.

Music Department
Stephen Hart	....	score mixer
Stephen Hart	....	score recording engineer

Other crew
Ryan Andrew Evans	....	production assistant

Production Companies

• Discovery Films

Distributors

• Discovery Films (2008) (USA) (theatrical)
• Image Entertainment (2008) (USA) (theatrical)
• Image Entertainment (2008) (USA) (DVD)
• THINKFilm (2008) (USA) (theatrical)

Other Companies

• Dolby Laboratories  sound mix

Runtime:

99 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:G | Canada:G (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario/Québec)

Filming Locations:

Antarctica

Company:

Discovery Films

Movie Connections:

Features Them! (1954)

Werner Herzog goes to Antarctica and shows us the people who live and work there

Encounters is an almost straight forward account of Werner Herzog going to Antarctica.Invited to go by one of the scientific organizations he agreed to go because he was fascinated by life under the sea ice (see his Wild Blue Yonder which used footage from under the ice to represent an alien world) and wanted to have a chance to film life there. He also warned them it would not result in film about fluffy penguins.

This is not Shackleton's Antarctica. The main US base is more like a mining colony anywhere on the fringes of civilization then what you think of when you think Antarctica. Its strangely modern and looks to be almost anywhere people mine. Indeed there is an odd shot of the modern camp with Scott's hut in the distance that signals how times have changed.

Herzog's film is really about some of the wayward travelers who have reached the frontier. Herzog is curious what sort of people they are and finds them to be a rather philosophical lot. They are what you would consider explorers of the 18th or 19th century looking for something greater then themselves. As one guy says "Where else do you find guys with Phds doing the dishes, or linguists on the one place on earth where there is no native language." Its an amusing portrait of people I think many of us would like to be.

We also get a portrait of what life is like there. Of the eternal sun (which annoys Herzog)Of the drabness of the living quarters (motel like)mixed with individual expression. We see the survival training, the various scientific studies going on (including one about penguins which cause Herzog to ponder if they go mad). and we see the landscape both above and below the ice on land and in the sea. These portraits of the land and seascapes are stunning. Herzog's ability to mix music and image creates some hypnotic passages that in part reminded me Koyaanisqatsi or Luc Besson's Atlantis. Its magical and creates sequences that you hate to see end.

If there is any flaw is that the film kind of just ends. There is a wonderful final quote by Alan Watts, but the film ultimately feels like a philosophical travelogue about a summer vacation instead of something grander then what I saw on my vacation. I'm sure had it not been Werner Herzog behind the camera I would not have been disappointed.

Still you must see the film on a big screen if you can. Its really beautiful at times. It will enlighten and inspire you- much more than this review will. And even though this is a Discovery Channel film, I'm glad I saw it where I did because there is something about the end credits with the seal songs echoing all thorough the theater from front to back that you can't get at home. The long confines of the Film Forum in New York really allows for the magic of a sound scape.

7.5 out of 10