Encounters at the End of the World
Directed by Werner Herzog
at Film Forum through June 24
In Encounters at the End of the World, a scientist tells Werner Herzog about a new undersea species (“urchins with parasite worms in the anus”) and the famously eccentric filmmaker-explorer remarks, “That must be a terrible way to live.” Herzog’s distinctly dry Germanic drawl gives the line a certain humor, but as more of this understated sarcasm accumulates, Encounters gets less amusing. It becomes too obvious that Herzog intends his observations on nature and non-human phenomena to also be big statements on mankind.
Hired by the National Science Foundation to document research activities at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, Herzog subverts his assignment, retooling the conventional nature doc (this one produced in cooperation with cable-TV’s Discovery Channel) into a hipster’s visual bible. Herzog takes scientific and anthropological investigations and uses them for a synopsis on the meaninglessness of life.
In his sarcastic mode, Herzog interviews a glaciologist, cell biologist, marine ecologist, linguist, physiologist, geochronologist, zoologist. One man is captiously identified as “Philosopher/Forklift Driver.” Herzog likes the professional paradox as much as the irony of finding brilliant, driven people who are also—inevitably—quirky. A typical Herzog image captures volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer standing at the mouth of a volcano; he has a stylish green hat pulled down over his red hair, a green and gold knit scarf around his neck and wears a rumpled, professorial brown tweed jacket. This bon vivant at the edge of an abyss is as fascinating for Herzog as any underwater or glacial spectacle.
Because Herzog has previously explored risky, extreme expeditions in The White Diamond and especially the undersea marvels of The Wild Blue Yonder, the imagery in Encounters is rather familiar—and, frankly, less amazing. It also lacks the excitement of the earlier films which were indeed about discovering visual wonders. Encounters is all about the weirdness of human endeavor we expect Herzog to find in the face of cosmic and earthly mystery. Images of a red octopus and spider-like white octopus are truly astounding, but when Herzog does a digression on penguins (asking if there’s insanity or homosexuality among the species), the link between animal and human behavior is condescending. Herzog’s favorite new theme—chaos—here becomes hipster Darwinism. (“[Mankind] grew to leave [the sea’s] horrible environment.”) He’s playing to his audience, the film cult that has made a fetish of his 1977 nihilistic-American folktale Strozek. Instead of respecting life’s abundance, he ponders anarchy and the unknowable void.
Herzog’s particularly flip when applying insincere cosmic shtick (soaring, a capella hymns) to images of underwater canyons and limitless ice-white plains. Herzog’s narration, quoting an oceanographer who describes his explorations as “going down into the cathedral,” is simply hokey and disingenuous. (“Yes, Dr. Gorham, but what is a neutrino?”) If Herzog’s Discovery Channel subversions were more widely seen, that snide Bavarian drawl would be as identifiable—and risible—as Lowell Thomas’ tenor in This Is Cinerama and the old 20th Century-Fox newsreels.
Coincidentally, an Encounters sequence of ice chimneys (underground eruptions that freeze into stalagmites) recalls the scene of frozen horses heads that become a tourist attraction in Guy Maddin’s unexpectedly marvelous My Winnipeg. But Encounters is a far less imaginative reconfiguration of the documentary format. Maddin used documentary to organize his peccadilloes and made his best film to date while Herzog perverts documentary to argue mankind’s insignificance (“Nature will regulate us”). Is he now the Nostradamus of the modern documentary? After the brilliantly original The White Diamond and The Wild Blue Yonder presented unusual professions and exotic outposts where individuals leave conventional society to express their aberrant instincts, the intrepid Herzog has finally hit a rut.
Directed by Werner Herzog
at Film Forum through June 24
In Encounters at the End of the World, a scientist tells Werner Herzog about a new undersea species (“urchins with parasite worms in the anus”) and the famously eccentric filmmaker-explorer remarks, “That must be a terrible way to live.” Herzog’s distinctly dry Germanic drawl gives the line a certain humor, but as more of this understated sarcasm accumulates, Encounters gets less amusing. It becomes too obvious that Herzog intends his observations on nature and non-human phenomena to also be big statements on mankind.
Hired by the National Science Foundation to document research activities at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, Herzog subverts his assignment, retooling the conventional nature doc (this one produced in cooperation with cable-TV’s Discovery Channel) into a hipster’s visual bible. Herzog takes scientific and anthropological investigations and uses them for a synopsis on the meaninglessness of life.
In his sarcastic mode, Herzog interviews a glaciologist, cell biologist, marine ecologist, linguist, physiologist, geochronologist, zoologist. One man is captiously identified as “Philosopher/Forklift Driver.” Herzog likes the professional paradox as much as the irony of finding brilliant, driven people who are also—inevitably—quirky. A typical Herzog image captures volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer standing at the mouth of a volcano; he has a stylish green hat pulled down over his red hair, a green and gold knit scarf around his neck and wears a rumpled, professorial brown tweed jacket. This bon vivant at the edge of an abyss is as fascinating for Herzog as any underwater or glacial spectacle.
Because Herzog has previously explored risky, extreme expeditions in The White Diamond and especially the undersea marvels of The Wild Blue Yonder, the imagery in Encounters is rather familiar—and, frankly, less amazing. It also lacks the excitement of the earlier films which were indeed about discovering visual wonders. Encounters is all about the weirdness of human endeavor we expect Herzog to find in the face of cosmic and earthly mystery. Images of a red octopus and spider-like white octopus are truly astounding, but when Herzog does a digression on penguins (asking if there’s insanity or homosexuality among the species), the link between animal and human behavior is condescending. Herzog’s favorite new theme—chaos—here becomes hipster Darwinism. (“[Mankind] grew to leave [the sea’s] horrible environment.”) He’s playing to his audience, the film cult that has made a fetish of his 1977 nihilistic-American folktale Strozek. Instead of respecting life’s abundance, he ponders anarchy and the unknowable void.
Herzog’s particularly flip when applying insincere cosmic shtick (soaring, a capella hymns) to images of underwater canyons and limitless ice-white plains. Herzog’s narration, quoting an oceanographer who describes his explorations as “going down into the cathedral,” is simply hokey and disingenuous. (“Yes, Dr. Gorham, but what is a neutrino?”) If Herzog’s Discovery Channel subversions were more widely seen, that snide Bavarian drawl would be as identifiable—and risible—as Lowell Thomas’ tenor in This Is Cinerama and the old 20th Century-Fox newsreels.
Coincidentally, an Encounters sequence of ice chimneys (underground eruptions that freeze into stalagmites) recalls the scene of frozen horses heads that become a tourist attraction in Guy Maddin’s unexpectedly marvelous My Winnipeg. But Encounters is a far less imaginative reconfiguration of the documentary format. Maddin used documentary to organize his peccadilloes and made his best film to date while Herzog perverts documentary to argue mankind’s insignificance (“Nature will regulate us”). Is he now the Nostradamus of the modern documentary? After the brilliantly original The White Diamond and The Wild Blue Yonder presented unusual professions and exotic outposts where individuals leave conventional society to express their aberrant instincts, the intrepid Herzog has finally hit a rut.
