Review of Encounters at the End of the World

Well, as someone who spent seasons at McMurdo and at the South Pole I can say Herzog got some things right. There really is trouble when Frosty Boy goes down, and the sky is amazing in its own right down on the Ice. I just wish he had brought a bit less of his agenda and let more of the actual place show in his film. I'm sorry the reality of keeping science going on the Ice is somewhat messier than Mr. Herzog would like. Having seen the trash heaps of the "great" Antarctic explorers, when they were here I'm sure they were just as messy and even smellier. Also, there are about 1000 people who work on the Ice making it possible for the science to happen. The four chosen to represent the community are nice people, but no more or less "typical" than any of us whom he did not chose to show. I know he filmed a bunch more people-I was there when he did so. Not only is the soundtrack horrible but the ambient sound is heavily edited too. No flight down from NZ is silent-everyone has earplugs in and the roar still rattles your brain. The choppers are noisy too, as are all of the various vehicles. It would have been nice to get some of the huge silence that you find anywhere more than 5 minutes walk from the center of Town. And the science-the main reason we go down year after year- was treated as sort of a joke. These researchers have a very short time to do all of their field work-most are there for less than 3 months. To have to put up with a film crew asking idiotic questions was an intrusion that they really didn't need. And there's way better footage available of the under-ice marine life-it was just taken by other divers. You could do very well watching this with the sound off and subtitles rolling. As for how Herzog got his grant; the NSF gives out 5 or 6 artist grants every year. They want to expand the type of exposure that Antarctica is given, as well as record a different type of human interaction with the environment. One of the other art works that happened that year was a set of blue spheres in different sizes set out on the ice and filmed from the air and by satellite. It was pretty cool. And I know nothing about the sturgeon under the South Pole.