Absolutely Fantastic

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Werner Herzog is a living legend in my opinion and this film explains why. He is willing to go to the edge of the world to find meaning and purpose- and he finds them in people, geographical objects and even penguins. Herzog goes to a base camp in Antarctica to learn about the inhabitants and why they are there. We learn about the kind of people and the kind of mindset they possess. But this isn't just a point and shoot interview. Featuring gorgeous but humbling vistas of the ice sheets and barren white land there is a poetic quality to the work. A scene featuring a lone penguin walking to its impending doom reeks of existentialist pain. This is a fantastic documentary by the amazing Werner Herzog.

Encounters at the End of the World is a powerful, haunting and inspiring documentary from the master himself, Werner Herzog. At this point it's really just amusing that either Herzog's fictional feature or documentaries haven't been awarded with an Oscar since in my opinion all of his documentaries are Oscar worthy.Encounters at the End of the World is the only Herzog documentary to even be nominated.The movie is essentially a look into Antarctica stringed together with a bunch of interviews of the various people Herzog meets on his journey. All of them have something truly interesting to say and Herzog himself provides once again his narration for the documentary.Encounters at the End of the World has a scene which is perhaps the most powerful image I've ever seen on film. A lonely, deranged penguin heading towards the mountains alone, towards a certain death.

First off, I'd like to say that I am not any sort of movie buff or amateur critic trying to drive traffic to my hipster blog. I'm just a regular guy that really enjoyed this film and wanted to leave my .02 I do watch a lot of movies. I watch them as most of the general public does, for entertainment. Never have I enjoyed watching a documentary as much as I did when I watched Encounters at the End of the World. Before watching this, the word Documentary transported me back to Middle/High school, where we watched horribly boring crap on a reel to reel projector.I read through a bunch of the 1-3 star ratings because I was curious why people didn't like this film. Most of them complained about the lack of "scientific data" or that it "wandered around aimlessly" or focused too much on the residents and how they went about their lives. Amazingly enough those are the exact reasons why I loved this film. I wasn't overwhelmed with boring scientific stuff - it had just enough. Werner did a great job of showing a little bit of a lot of things, all engaging and entertaining. Lastly, the people he interacted with were great, I felt like each one of them were telling their story just to me.Opposite of some reviews, I enjoy Werner's narrations very much. I find it soothing and enjoyable.Watch this film and enjoy it for what it is, not for what the buffs want it to be.

If you have ever gone travelling, and just started wandering around a strange city, letting your nose take you off the beaten path, you see a completely different world from the one of travelogues. You get a feel for what it would be like to live there.Encounters at the End of the world is like that. Herzog pokes around Antarctica, letting his curiosity guide him. You come away with a feeling you know quite well what it would be like to live there.There is a fair bit of underwater footage. You see strange things. Are they plants, animals, rocks or discarded bits of technology? He tells you nothing. You just get to look and marvel.Herzog narrates in his easy-to-understand Bavarian-accented English. There are subtitles, but rarely are they necessary.Over and over something catches his eye, and he decides to explore, never telegraphing what is coming. He discovers the most amazing places.There is no plot or development or theme other than exploration.The sound is exceptionally crisp without wind noise. It is almost spooky. I read in the credits that Herzog handled this personally.