Who would choose to live at the bottom of the world? Mad scientists studying a parasite that lives in a worm’s anus, dead-language linguists growing hot house tomatoes, irrepressible absurdist stand up comedians, bankers turned transportation drivers, itinerant welders who are descendants of Aztec royalty, that’s who. What kind of filmmaker chooses to film such people at the bottom of the world? A filmmaker who is obsessed with mankind’s relationship to nature (past, present, and future), a filmmaker who is both kind of kooky and deadly serious.
We know this filmmaker as Werner Herzog.
In Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog reminds us, as he has in many of his films, what he thinks of nature with a capital N; it is a ravenous, remorseless murderer. But if Herzog was just a doomer declaring, “the end is nigh,” we’d have ignored him long ago. Nature is also wondrous and awe-inspiring. He may not say this in his now self-parodying voice over narration, but he certainly shows it in his images: stone-still biologists with their ears to ice pack listening to the eerie calls made by seals, a handheld tracking shot of almost interminable length through a natural steam vent that looks something like a giant, illuminated icy blue intestine, and all manner of bizarre underwater life. He captures this and shows it poetically, and that’s what elevates a film like this from standard television nature show fare.
His other great theme is how Man with a capital M can be simultaneously a part of nature and apart from nature. I don’t recall him stating this dilemma as directly or eloquently as when he shows us Scott’s preserved base at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. We want to experience unspoiled nature, and we want to conquer it, but the instant we get there we contaminate it. Our presence makes experiencing pristine nature impossible. It’s a bit like that Groucho Marx joke Woody Allen is so fond of—I’d never belong to a club that would have me as a member. And yet explore and conquer we must, it is a compulsion, like the compulsion that takes Herzog to extreme environments over and over.
Life without exploration is unthinkable, and Herzog’s lens has made some unforgettable cinematic moments reminding us of this.
A question arose among the folks I saw this film with: Is Herzog in on his own joke?
It seems to me he’s too intelligent not to be. (Listen to his interview about Grizzly Man from 2005 or watch The Grand if you dare, and tell me he is unaware of the impact—dramatic and comedic—of his uber Germanness). The audience howled when he asked two biologist who may have discovered a new species of microbial life, “Is this a great moment?” and when he asked a taciturn and befuddled penguinologist if the critters can go insane. These moments of dry humor are strategically placed to lighten the film’s overall mood of doom. And a good thing, too, because without them the film, and by extension, life, would be unbearably depressing.