So far I have seen embarrassingly few of Werner Herzog’s films, all of them documentaries: Grizzly Man, Lessons of Darkness, and now Encounters and the End of the World. I own both of Anchor Bay’s box sets, so I really don’t have any excuses. January is going to be my Herzog month, where I hope I’ll see everything I own by him. As I’ve come to understand with just these three docs, Herzog loves insanity. He also seems pretty pessimistic about humans, hypothesizing that it is in our nature to self-destruct.
This film works as a series of mini portraits of a range of individuals who have spent a significant amount of time living and working near our planet’s south pole. While one presumes that these studies will provide insight into the effects of isolation, consistently freezing temperatures, and inconsistent day and night cycles, the film instead focuses on more random quirks of the continent’s inhabitants, such as the man who has equal-length pinky and index fingers on both of his hands because of his Native American heritage, or the underwater diver who likes to show his crew cult science fiction films. The more interesting parts are when the subjects speak about their jobs, or upcoming retirement. The film will probably be most remembered for the ‘deranged’ penguin that Herzog deems insane as it marches toward a distant mountain range, mostly likely to its death. The concept of insanity occurring in the animal world is an interesting one even though I doubt it is a new idea. He also questions the idea of homosexuality in the penguin world, which is fun to ponder but again nothing new.
The film’s most beautiful moment involves the sounds that seals make under water. It sounds almost completely unnatural and synthetic, and should inspire electronic composers to capture some recordings of their calls to sample in their compositions.
The entire experience of watching Encounters at the End of the World is enjoyable, but without a clear focus it misses having a lasting impact on me, and settles for being minor, but still good.