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Home » Culture and Criticism

Encounters At The End Of The World

Submitted by on February 10, 2009 – 8:45 PM9 Comments

encountIt’s stayed with me for a few days; Werner Herzog, who narrates as well as writing and directing the documentary, has a way of musing in voice-over about the prospects for human life’s continued tenure on earth that make said prospects sound quite dire.

But it’s a good travelogue, lovely to look at, the seal-call thing is just plain neat — the topic is obviously near to Herzog’s heart, so the result is an excellent illustration of the personal becoming universal.It’s also an excellent illustration of one of Herzog’s most crucial skills: the ability to sand the obnoxious edges off his subjects, to bring their stories out from the tofu-flavored rambling that often surrounds them.Way back in the day, I worked on an educational-television project called Live from Antarctica, and while I didn’t go to the South Pole, it’s not news to me that McMurdo Station has a higher-than-normal population of disenfranchised PhD/surfer/weavers, hippies sans portfolio, scientists who have spent so much time among their creatures of study that they’ve lost the ability to communicate effectively with humans, and so on.Herzog has a real gift for putting people like that — people like Timothy Treadwell — at their best advantage in front of the camera, cutting away some of the poorly-socialized fat so the audience can get at the interesting stories on the bone.

It’s nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Oscar, but while it likely won’t win, it’s worth watching.

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9 Comments »

  • Kate says:

    Aw, no other posts tagged “shut up hippies”?

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    I was surprised by that too, Kate. Give it time. Heh.

  • Drew says:

    Sounds like it’s worth a look, and thanks for including the link to your review of Grizzly Man. I don’t know how I missed that entry the first time around, but it was a really great read. I haven’t seen either film, but I did see the film version and read the book Into the Wild. Both of those struck a strong chord with me, but it was based more on my admiration of McCandless having the courage to do what he did, as I continue to sit behind a desk.

    Just the same, actually doing what he did should remain nothing more than a passing fancy. There is always the flip side of the coin, which your review hit on very strongly. Krakauer and (especially) Sean Penn (whom I can apparently only take when he’s behind a camera, rather than chewing the scenery in front of it) sort of go out of their way to lionize the dude for his adventurous, pure spirit, or some such.

    I don’t think they do it to such an excessive degree that it detracts from the quality of their respective works or the compelling nature of the store. Nevertheless, I came away from both thinking that there might be an uptick in the number of people who took the story too closely to heart, sort of the way McCandless did with his Tolstoy and Thoreau books. He and Treadwell would have done well to read Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” as well.

  • Kate says:

    I saw it about a year and a half ago at the Telluride Film Festival and I have to say, for the rest of the weekend, whenever I was out drinking with friends someone would start in a Werner Herzog German Accent, “Are there any Gaaaaay Penguins? Do penguins ever go insaaaaane?” and we would all break into fits of hysterical laughter.

    I loved the film and was very glad I saw it (and I heartly recommend it to other people) but the best part was the joy the penguin part brought us, especially since it was so sad.

  • Liz says:

    I just saw this a few days ago and my husband and I have been referring to everything we don’t like as “abominations such as aerobics studios” ever since. I really liked it a lot. Herzog has a gift for taking stories about extreme external conditions, such as life in Antarctica or Timothy Treadwell’s story, and going places with them that really aren’t about the external environment at all. But they don’t have that “heart of darkness” narrative either, so they don’t end up fitting any of the narratives that you might expect.

    I have been thinking a lot about that poor deluded penguin heading into the heart of Antarctica. Not so much about the fact that it was waddling to its doom, since the life of a penguin in the wild is probably not going to be long anyway, but that this apparently happens often enough that there’s an official policy about not bothering or getting in the way of the lost penguins.

  • La BellaDonna says:

    :( I would rather there was an official policy of, y’know, turning penguins around in the right direction. But then again, I would like to be able to criss-cross the Serengheti with hundred-pound bags of Meow Mix and water bottles when the antelopes are running scarce and the waterholes are drying up. I don’t happen to think that Nature Is Always Right.

  • Liz says:

    My disenfranchised PhD/surfer/weaver cousin has worked at McMurdo for several summers now! (… Okay, actually he’s a carpenter. But he is much in the spirit of the PhD/surfer/weaver group.) I doubt he shows up in the documentary, but I’ll definitely watch it if I get the chance.

  • Kate says:

    La BellaDonna,

    In the film (which you should really see) they explain that even if they turn the penguin around, even if they drive the penguin in a car to the edge of the sea, the penguin will still turn around and go right back towards the mountains. So it doesn’t matter if they interfere or not. It’s very said really.

  • Kristina says:

    I should have read to the end of the comments before watching this because I cannot stop thinking about the penguins. I am so so stupidly and annoyingly sad about them. I am also in the deepest deeps of my PMS so I’m hoping that this weepiness will end in two days, but how in the hell did Herzog not ask Ainsley why he doesn’t study *those* penguins? Am I the only person who wanted to follow the little dude, just to see what happens? Maybe study their brain waves or something?

    I’m with La BellaDonna on this one – I was super pissed at the Planet Earth people for not helping out that lost lonely male elephant in the desert, those jerks.

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