Film: 'Encounters at the End of the World' (2007)

I've had a lifelong fixation with Antarctica. As a child I feasted on Endurance and The Last Place On Earth, dreaming of epic, parka-clad adventures on otherworldly terrain. After suffering through too many cutesy, uninformative movies about penguins, at last I've found a film that focuses on the white continent of my childhood dreams. Written, directed, and charmingly narrated by the wonderful Werner Herzog, here is an entrancing picture of the brave, hardy, and eccentric people who live and work at the bottom of the world. Herzog encounters a broad spectrum of human life-forms, including a banker-turned-bus driver, a plumber descended from Aztec royalty, and a cell biologist who plays electric guitar on the roof of a Quonset hut. Traveling from the continent's largest community, McMurdo Station, to the top of volcano Mount Erebus, the film explores several small research and diving encampments and even, briefly, an open-mic night at a bar. This is not an animal movie, though there are some delightfully fat seals and even a few deranged penguins. It's a fascinating look at the sort of person who winds up at the fabled last place on earth; the travelers, philosophers, researchers, and dreamers of strange dreams who find something in this environment that they can't get anywhere else.

I loved the whole film immensely, but the bits I liked best were the extraordinarily beautiful underwater sequences. Henry Kaiser's lovely footage sucks you into a world it's likely you'd never be able to see for yourself; strange, spooky creatures abound beneath the ice, flowing along in frigid waters beneath a sealed sky. This is definitely a new favourite film, and one I look forward to seeing again every time I can make a friend sit still and watch it with me.