Encounters
at the End of the World
In many ways, current preoccupation with
the environment has a religious dimension, and this is certainly
the sense we get from this documentary about the workings and workers of
McMurdo scientific research station in Antarctica. A devotee of this environmental
movement might argue that the problem with the
major established religions is that they tend to emphasise the supernatural (the religion of the environment is
strictly real) and thus their ideas about how to live well tends not to prioritise eco-friendly,
earth-preserving, behaviours, like recycling and carbon-budgeting. These things aren't emphasised, they might say,
because of the emphasis on the afterlife.
We explore our world - to do so even when it's dangerous is almost our defining characteristic - but we’ll never map it all, count all
the species, plumb all the depths. McMurdo’s immediate environment – situated as it is in an outpost,
a frontier town for pioneering types – and
all that goes on there informs us of this. Nearby, icebergs “bigger than the
country that built the Titanic” as one scientist puts it, are breaking free
from the Antarctic shelf and flowing North. One of them could “switch off” a
warm ocean current – it’s happened before – and cause an ice age, just like
that, and there’s little, if anything,
we can do about it.
A major message of
this documentary is very simple: we’re finished. Whether this is by our
own hand or not - the concern of other recent environmental documentaries - is moot. Every species' time
at the top of the food chain comes to an end, and our last call is just
around the corner. Hearing that the end is nigh from these scientists in such bald terms is a surprise.
Herzog takes the theme of "endings" to give the documentary a focus. We have the
retiring marine biologist making his final exploratory dive beneath the
ice-sheet, and the Aztec descendant metal-worker, whose Royal Aztec genes are evinced
by his hand’s distinctive silhouette. It’s clear that the title makes a play on
words, even if the joke’s effect is primarily sobering. A funnier joke comes in
the unlikely form of the eccentric behaviour of penguins that Herzog’s antenna
for that sort of thing identifies, and which we’re tempted to interpret as a
a metaphor for the less rational sides of human behaviour.
The eschatology of the human race aside, the inhabitants
of the research station and their activities are interesting in their own
right, and the range of scientific endeavours discussed is broad. This includes the
study of incredibly shortlived neutrinos, analyses of seal milk, the behaviour
of new species of single-cell marine fauna, and volcanology, among others. Throughout,
we hear Werner Herzog’s accented narration and his dialogue with the
film’s subjects, which tends towards the humorous (he tells us that he accepted
the grant to make the film on the condition that it wouldn’t be “another
film about penguins”). The soundtrack varies between new-age mystical stuff (while
we marvel at the images of the sub-ice sheet landscape, for example) and classy folky American guitar, but
the most extraordinary “music” comes from the animals themselves, namely the
sound that the seals make underwater, and this is one of the film's high points.
The scientists in McMurdo enjoy watching old
science fiction movies with themes of alien invasions and other global
disasters. If you like films with nature photography then there is better
available elsewhere. However, if you’re in the market for a couple of hours in
the company of Herzog making sense of a visit to McMurdo then you’re in luck.