Encounters at the End of the World

4/29/08

Coolidge Corner Theater

For about three years I worked as a volunteer ticket taker at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge. My shift was Wednesday nights for the early and late shows (usually two different films in a double feature) and I would always stay and watch at least the early show, regardless of what it was. Given the wide range of programming at the Brattle, this occasionally resulted in sitting through some seriously tedious stuff. Most of the time, though, but this forced movie watching exposed me to a comprehensive film history that I likely would never have encountered otherwise.

Two years ago the Brattle ran a Werner Herzog retrospective, and the first Wednesday was a double feature of Cobra Verde and My Best Fiend. At first viewing I didn't like Cobra Verde at all, but was fascinated by the complete insanity of Klaus Kinski. This was my first exposure to Kinski, and I couldn't get the scenes of him charging up a huge female African army out of my head. I was especially struck by the final scene of him crashing around in the surf, and while I wasn't interested enough to stay for the documentary that night, I decided to come back the next night for Aguirre, the Wrath of God. This film knocked me out. Kinski is more restrained but no less creepily intense, and the slow burn of the film had me completely hypnotized until the famous final scene of Kinski alone on his raft except for a bunch of monkeys, madly declaring himself the wrath of god. 

From that point on, I have been a bit obsessed with Herzog, and have slowly been making my way through all of his films, documentaries, documentaries about him, and documentaries about people who are far more obsessed with him. So I was very happy to see that the 2008 Independent Film Festival of Boston closing night film was his newest documentary, Encounters at the End of the World. 

At first glance this looks like any number of generic IMAX/Discovery Channel docs, but that perception changes almost immediately as Herzog and his cameraman land on Antartica. While the film meanders around from subject to subject, Herzog is most interested in the type of people who would abandon any semblance of normal life and move to what is basically the equivalent of a military base stuck in an almost endless void of ice.  As you would expect these are unusual people- among them, a woman who traveled across a continent in a sewer pipe, a man whose hands are evidence of royal Incan lineage, and a linguist who tends a greenhouse in a continent of dead languages. But he is far from exploitive- he takes a typically philosophical approach to each person in trying to find out what brought them there. Much of the rest of the film is free of dialogue and focuses on some amazing footage, both on land and underwater. 

There are so many things that stand out- lines of people with buckets on their heads trying to practice survival skills, the sadly hilarious penguin who loses his way and waddles off to his demise, divers swimming away untethered from their only exit hole in the ice, and most of all, the surreal underwater recordings of seals that I still can not believe was not made on some sort of electronic equipment. Besides all of this, of course, Herzog's narration (as much as I am obsessed with his films I am even more weirdly obsessed with his voice) hypnotically and humorously ties everything together. 

I suppose this won't be playing at any multiplexes but absolutely should be seen on the screen rather than on TV.