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Encounters at the End of the World
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 13 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by:
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 11, 2008
DVD: November 18, 2008
Running Time: minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: G
Starring Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog confirms his standing as poet laureate of men in extreme situations with Encounters at the End of the World. In this visually stunning exploration, Herzog travels to the Antarctic community of McMurdo Station, headquarters of the National Science Foundation and home to eleven hundred people during the austral summer (Oct-Feb). Over the course of his journey, Herzog examines human nature and Mother nature, juxtaposing breathtaking locations with the profound, surreal, and sometimes absurd experiences of the marine biologists, physicists, plumbers, and truck drivers who choose to form a society as far away from society as one can get. (THINKFilm)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The stunning images aren't enough for Herzog, though. He wants us to see how these quirky researchers, in their lust to explore, are acting out a drive as primitive as nature: the need to break away from the world in order to find it.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Werner Herzog is a stranger in a strange land as soon as he gets out of bed in the morning: in this travelogue of Antarctica, his perverse curiosity and zest for the harshest extremes of nature transform what might have been a standard TV special into an idiosyncratic expression of wonder.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Like many of Mr. Herzog's movies, fiction and nonfiction, Encounters at the End of the World itself has the quality of a dream: it's at once vivid and vague, easy to grasp and somehow beyond reach.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
A deranged penguin is seen racing toward his certain doom amid the crags of a mountain range. It may not be "Happy Feet," but Herzog has made a penguin movie after all.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Does Antarctica attract dreamers or create them? It's a thread that runs throughout the film.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Takes you places an ordinary documentary filmmaker might’ve gone to yet missed completely.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Through Herzog's eyes it is a desolate, strangely beautiful frozen Edenish hell where the planet, having shaken out its pockets, lets the loners, fanatics and cosmologist-crackpots fall to bottom.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
All this is as fascinating as it is humbling, even when Herzog ventures a little too far down eccentricity's back alley.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
An engaging and generous profile of the fascinating folks who have chosen to live at the end of the world.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen
The images captured by Herzog and cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger are dazzling all on their own, finding the disorienting psychedelia that is nature at its weirdest.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Don R. Lewis
I also think Herzog is making a case for those crazy enough to follow their dreams, even when they take you to the end of the earth. Literally.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
It's as much fun to anticipate what he's (Herzog) going to say as it is to appreciate the snowy landscapes, belching volcanoes and mustachioed seals before his lens. And what could have been a conventional travelogue becomes a sort of ruminative odyssey of the mind.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego
An enjoyable example of this extraordinary director's documentary work.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
A sort of distracted, freewheeling form of inquiry and observation drives Encounters At The End Of The World, a loosely constructed documentary that seems to have been made on a whim.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
Encounters may lack the power of, say, the Herzog doc "Grizzly Man," because it has no bigger-than-life character at its nexus, but it does confirm the filmmaker as an iconoclastic master.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
It's a loosely bound collection of miscellany filmed at the McMurdo Station, a 1,000-person settlement of researchers in Antarctica, during the five-month "austral summer" of round-the-clock sunlight. Herzog was sent to Antarctica by the National Science Foundation with carte blanche to make whatever movie he wanted--all he could tell them for sure was that it wouldn't involve penguins.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
Midway through, an eerier theme creeps in, all the more powerful for Herzog's lack of insistence. By the "end of the world" he means the end of the world.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
Retains considerable entertainment value on the strength of Herzog's never-dull, very personal narrating style.
Read Full Review >Variety Scott Foundas
Resultant picture -- one of Herzog's best and most purely enjoyable -- may lack the built-in curio factor of "Grizzly Man."
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Perhaps because Herzog is approaching old-master status, Encounters at the End of the World skews toward the observational. As in "Grizzly Man," his 2005 portrait of a deranged bear lover, Herzog seems at least as fascinated with other people's obsessions as his own.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
It's Herzog-light, in a way -- more travelogue than dissection. But it's filled with small riches, not least of which is the director's amazing narration. Can't you just imagine him reading "Green Eggs and Ham"?
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
You get the impression that Herzog believes wholeheartedly the planet will be better off without us. Nosferatu that we have proven ourselves to be, he may be right.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Creating a hypnotically digressive travelogue, Herzog wanders from soul to soul, asking deceptively mild questions to potent effect.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Alex H. gave it a3:
It doesn't work as a nature documentary, as it lacks enough footage or information to stand up to Planet Earth, or even your average National Geographic documentary. Instead, the movie relies on half-baked philosophical musings, with about as much insight as a stoned guy rambling about humanity's inevitable extinction. Herzog's English is relatively poor, and his linguistic limitations mean he often relies on cliche, and this reveals how trite most of his ideas are. The music is intrusive and often manipulative - especially the choral pieces, which draw obvious cave/cathedral comparisons. For $5, you could rent this film. But for the same price, you could buy a joint, get your buddy stoned, and ask him about his thoughts on life. PASS.
Hyper S gave it a5:
A documentary of sorts has two goals in my view: 1) Either entertain the audience. 2) Or spark a sense of curiosity and imagination in the audience and educate them along the way. This film failed to do both. The film was about Antarctica, but you could have renamed it to "Alaska" or "Canada" or even "Colorado" and no one would have known the difference. Heck take a camera into a random apartment complex and interview the tenants and you'd probably get a more entertaining film. The film focused more on the more-often-than-not lackluster researchers on the continent instead of showing the audience the aura of Antarctica. Where are the exotic creatures? Inspiring underwater sequences [all but one in the film]? What no cool ice glacier canyons or anything? We got a few seconds of some Penguins [snore], a couple of starfish [snore], one clam [snore], and one jellyfish [snore]. Oh, but we got to watch them sexually assault a family of seals! I'm a fan of documentaries, but this one has no theme... no point... just random bits glued together and the pace was too slow just waiting... hoping... for anything to peek one's curiosity. I became so bored I began envisioning the narrator as Arnold Schwarzenegger just to pass the time. Save the time and just flip on the Discovery channel and watch Planet Earth or something. In 5 minutes you'll get more than this film has to offer in 1hr 40 mins.
Jay H. gave it a7:
6.5/10. Frequently fascination, occasionally slow moving and boring. It is a very informative documentary with some arresting images and it is well researched. Good narration.
Syd O gave it a10:
Truly and exceptional documentary. Herzog steps beyond the "penguin" side of Antarctica to show the truly mysterious and other worldly goings on of the continent and it's imported inhabitants. His dry humor never lets the film get to caught up in itself. It really is a delight to see.
Doug N. gave it a9:
Werner Herzog doing his usual thing. Much better than the penguin movie last year. He explores the usual off beat characters, plus the beautiful landscape. Excellent.
J S. gave it a10:
Antarctica is as unusual as Herzog's film. Not a drama, yet it is dramatic, neither is it a travelogue or a documentary, though it easily covers all that. The film is a new catagory: metafilm. I just made it up, but it fits. Herzog's film delivers a visceral connect with our place, this blue ball we live on, rolling through an alien sea of darkness we know little about. It's almost as if the world is split into those who have seen it, those who have lived in Antarctica and met realities masked back home on the mall, and those who have not seen it. Such mystery is the grandeur of great filmmakers.
