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Last year I saw Werner Herzog's Wild Blue Yonder, a film about space exploration he cobbled together with found footage. There is an extensive sequence involving the Antarctic ocean, which stands in for a planet with a liquid atmosphere. It is exquisite, and I'm not surprised that Herzog decided to go to Antarctica to see it for himself. The result is Encounters at the End of the World a documentary in which he interviews people stationed at McMurdo Station.
I have not seen this film. But I have intentions to do so, both because I am a great fan of Herzog (those his films make me feel like falling apart) and because I feel almost driven to go visit that Antarctic ocean, again.
Something I did not admit when I wrote about Wild Blue Yonder before is that I watched those Antarctic sequences over and over, again. It was so beautiful. So soothing. So melancholic. In some strange way, it made me feel like someone had given voice to my own sense of exile that I experienced while coming through this last depression.
Herzog is not a sentimentalist. His art revolves around a kind of fatalism that is mixed both with humor and compassion. I always remember the part of Grizzly Man, (which is a great and disturbing and also funny film) where he tells one of the Bear Man's girlfriends that he has heard the footage of the Bear Man's mauling and will not be sharing that with his audiences. He is so kind to her. He is so tasteful with his choice of footage. And yet, what is this movie about? It is about someone who walks willingly, if unknowingly, into the jaws of death. It is a fantastic metaphor for the human condition. His entire body of work seems to be an exploration of the animal that is concious of its own mortality and the inherent humor and pathos and absurdity that condition contains.
I have not seen this film. But I have intentions to do so, both because I am a great fan of Herzog (those his films make me feel like falling apart) and because I feel almost driven to go visit that Antarctic ocean, again.
Something I did not admit when I wrote about Wild Blue Yonder before is that I watched those Antarctic sequences over and over, again. It was so beautiful. So soothing. So melancholic. In some strange way, it made me feel like someone had given voice to my own sense of exile that I experienced while coming through this last depression.
Herzog is not a sentimentalist. His art revolves around a kind of fatalism that is mixed both with humor and compassion. I always remember the part of Grizzly Man, (which is a great and disturbing and also funny film) where he tells one of the Bear Man's girlfriends that he has heard the footage of the Bear Man's mauling and will not be sharing that with his audiences. He is so kind to her. He is so tasteful with his choice of footage. And yet, what is this movie about? It is about someone who walks willingly, if unknowingly, into the jaws of death. It is a fantastic metaphor for the human condition. His entire body of work seems to be an exploration of the animal that is concious of its own mortality and the inherent humor and pathos and absurdity that condition contains.
