Encounters at the End of the World

Encounters at the End of the World (2007) is Werner Herzog's documentary about Antarctica — watch it online on iFILM. He arrives at McMurdo Station with one stated rule: no cute penguin footage. What he wants instead are the people — the ones who left ordinary lives to live on a continent that is actively trying to kill them.

Herzog interviews a philosopher driving a forklift, a former banker turned diver, and researchers who descend beneath four feet of ice to study single-celled organisms for reasons that take a while to explain. The station holds around 1,200 people. Most of them, when asked, turn out to be running from something. The landscape itself barely figures into the interviews — it's the humans Herzog finds strange, not the ice.

The film picked up an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. As a piece of filmmaking it's a reminder that Herzog's narration is half the film: dry, philosophical, occasionally baffled. Stream Encounters at the End of the World (2007) online on iFILM.