Film Reviews

Encounters at the End of the World

• Rating:
• Director: Werner Herzog
• Starring: Werner Herzog
• Details: US/99mins (G)

After what was basically an editing gig on his previous documentary Grizzly Man (Herzog cobbled together footage shot by Tim Treadwell and intercut some interviews of his own), Herzog takes full control on Encounters at the End of the World. After convincing his financers that he wasn't just going to make 'another penguin documentary' he duly takes off for Antarctica with no real plan but with hopes of finding his documentary when there.

Landing in McMurdo Station, a research centre with a population of 1,000, Herzog gets in amongst the happy, chilled out inhabitants and teases out some characters. Looking like a reverse of The Beach community, Herzog finds a plethora of adventurers, scientists, travellers, and dreamers - all doubling up on jobs to make life easier (there's philosopher/forklift driver and a filmmaker/cook).

Disappointed that it's just an "ugly mining town… that even as an ATM," Herzog heads off into the "seamlessly endless void". Out in the ice, he meets the man whose underwater photography first gave him the idea for the documentary - Sam Bowser - an eccentric diver who makes his team watch '50s Sci-Fi movies; volcanologists; 'demented' penguins (a small segment that offers information missing from March of the Penguins); and seal studiers (the call of the seals under the ice sound like the coolest thing ever, Pink Floyd meets Doctor Who).

An impressive factual documentary, Encounters… is a bit of a tease; the amazing visuals only come in flashes and when there is an odd, elongated underwater sequence, Herzog snaps the viewer back topside. It's a frustrating tactic. There's plenty here for any nature fan to love, but there's not a lot here to render this a cinema release..

Review by Gavin Burke