This movie looks like there might be dive footage

[Chris H]

I saw this article and thought it looked like it could be cool.  Has anyone seen it?



Antarctica documentary 'End of the World' dives deep
Katjusa Cisar  —  7/25/2008 5:33 am

In Werner Herzog's magnificent documentary "Encounters at the End of the World," the end of the world is both a location and a happening.

McMurdo Station in Antarctica is the end stop at the bottom of the world, a frigid town haunted by unrelenting daylight and the cries of shifting icebergs. Here, a ragtag society of scientists, futurists and self-described "professional dreamers" treat the world as if it's ending soon.

The German film director takes the viewer on a narrated journey into the depths of the ocean beneath the ice and deep into the philosophies of the people who plumb them for answers to humanity's most basic questions. It's a must-see movie that provokes conversation and takes nothing for granted.

Herzog has uncovered a community that collects visionaries and wack jobs -- and sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference. One woman says that Antarctica is "the end of adventure" for her. She's traveled around the world, collecting a litany of ridiculous "firsts" -- the first to travel from Ecuador to Lima in a sewer pipe, the first to cross the African continent in a garbage truck.

And here she is in Antarctica at McMurdo's only bar, performing a stunt on "freak night" where she squeezes herself into a gym bag. Has she lost her sanity or found it? Maybe she's just like the penguin that leaves his tribe and waddles off in the wrong direction on his way to certain death.

Just when you think Herzog has leapt off into a nonsensical tangent, he ties together themes and characters in a mind-bending way. In McMurdo, humans view themselves as part of the ongoing catastrophes that ebb and flow over millennia. The consensus seems to be, "We're next."

Instead of turning them cynical, this worldview humbles them and makes them acutely aware of the wonders that surround them. Yet they still remain sobered by the consequences of global climate change.

After a day of discovering species, a group of marine scientists routinely gather around a TV to watch old doomsday movies, like the 1954 atomic thriller "Them!" For these scientists, "Them!" is not far-fetched reality, half-baked by nuclear hysteria. It's the face of the future.

This all might seem like a crushing downer if it weren't for Herzog's obvious love for and faith in people, combined with a childlike wonder in the natural beauty of the world.

Some of McMurdo's residents seem to have found God amidst the icebergs. In one scene, Herzog comments that the divers preparing to go underwater are like priests preparing for mass. Towards the end, one scientist talks about his work studying neutrinos, particles so small and elusive that he says it's like trying to find God -- "like measuring the spirits."

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD


Four stars

Stars: Werner Herzog

Rated: G

How long: 1:35

Where: Sundance