WERNER Herzog made it clear from the outset: He wanted to go to Antarctica but had no intention of making another film about lovable penguins. The National Science Foundation gave him approval anyway.
And so, in his documentary “Encounters at the End of the World,” we see the German-born filmmaker flying into the McMurdo Station, hub of the US Antarctic program and home to 1,100 people during the summer and spring.
He wasn’t quite prepared for a place that looked like “an ugly mining town filled with construction sites.”
Nor was he expecting certain of the base’s amenities – he calls them “abominations” – such as ATMs, a bowling alley and yoga classes. But he was not to be deterred.
He speaks with some of the people who call the bottom of the world home.
A forklift operator calls Antarctica “a strange and amazing place filled with professional dreamers,” a group that surely includes Herzog himself.
A plumber says his oddly shaped fingers prove he is a descendant of ancient Aztec royalty. Why, he could be one of the oddballs who inhabit Herzog’s fictional epics such as “Aguirre, The Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo.”
As usual, Herzog’s outlook is bleak. Shown an iceberg “bigger than the one that sank the Titanic, bigger than the Titanic, bigger than the country that built the Titanic,” Herzog wonders about climate change’s effect on natural wonders.
“Encounters” may lack the power of, say, the Herzog doc “Grizzly Man,” because it has no bigger-than-life character at its nexus, but it does confirm the filmmaker as an iconoclastic master.
Running time: 99 minutes. Rated G (nothing objectionable). At Film Forum, Houston Street west of Sixth Avenue.
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD