Tonight I went to an advanced preview of Werner Herzog’s documentary film about existence at the South Pole and I loved it! The film gets its UK release later this week on 24 April and Herzog has already presented it at the BFI (British Film institute).

Admittedly, the first five minutes didn’t quite have a compelling narrative because whilst there was a voiceover (v/o, in script writer’s terms) the lack of interaction with his fellow passengers on the flight out to Antarctica meant that those scenes felt quite abstract, disjointed and vaguely faux philosophical.

However, as soon as the passengers disembarked at McMurdo and Herzog interviewed various “travelers and dreamers” who’d eschewed conventional careers to work where there’s 24-hours of daylight for five months of the year — October to February, inclusive — or who’d landed there to undertake vital scientific research to unlock a myriad of mysteries about the “Big Bang” including:

· neutrinos

· the DNA of single cell micro-organisms

· volcanic

we met some wonderful and, occasionally eccentric, characters. Their stories of how they had ended up near the South Pole where a person “falls off the margins of the map” were both illuminating as well as lent pathos and dry wit by Herzog as the director, writer and narrator.

The first interviewee was Scott Rockwell, a former banker who’s now the Ivan Terra mobile driver on McMurdo. This is akin to a banker becoming a bus driver, by the way. Next was Stefan Pashov whom Herzog subtitled as “philosopher, forklift driver” who spoke about being read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey as a child:

Another character was of Red Indian descent and he informed us that his doctor had told him he carried the royal blood of the Incas, according to the rather unusual and distinctive shape of his hands. On McMurdo and in today’s modern age, he’s an occasional welder of pipes.

With the exception of two former computer experts, whom Herzog did v/o’s of to cut short their rambling and soporific interviews, everyone portrayed in the documentary was engaging and revelatory.

Along the cinematic journey, the audience was also witness to the majesty and mysteries of Nature where it can reach to minus 70 degrees Celsius. Apart from the expanse of crystalline ice with the sun refracting all the colors of the rainbow as it bounced off it, we gained insights on plant and organism life below the surface of the ice sheets. There were pulsating neon red jellyfish, fluorescent yellow worms and scuttling shellfish that sent sand dispersing through the icy water.

Herzog’s pan and tracking shots of this sub-aqua activity were accompanied by either urgent violins, church organs or angelic choirs, to give the sensation that Nature is a religious (or, at least, spiritual) experience.

During another preview screening, Herzog was recorded being interviewed about the process of making Encounters at the end of the world, so this is well worth a look-see:

Near the opening of the film, he noted that he told his sponsors The National Science Society that he would not be in Antarctica to film any more “fluffy penguins”. True to his word he focused on this little penguin on his journey instead:

In conclusion, it was 101 minutes well spent and I’ve never laughed so much at any German’s sense of humor like Herzog’s before! There are some priceless moments of observational wit and dry humor in ‘Encounters at the End of the World’.

So maybe some of us should move to the South Pole………………to grow a GSOH!