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Encounters at the End of the World (2007)

7.7
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Ratings: 7.7/10 from 8,944 users   Metascore: 80/100
Reviews: 56 user | 143 critic | 25 from Metacritic.com

Filmmaker Werner Herzog travels to Antarctica, looking to capture its natural beauty and investigate the characters there.

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Title: Encounters at the End of the World (2007)

Encounters at the End of the World (2007) on IMDb 7.7/10

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Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 2 wins & 6 nominations. See more awards »

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Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
Narrator
Scott Rowland ...
Himself - Transportation Dept.
Stefan Pashov ...
Himself - Philosopher, Forklift Driver
Doug MacAyeal ...
Himself - Glaciologist (as Douglas MacAyeal)
Ryan Andrew Evans ...
Himself - Filmmaker, Cook (as Ryan A. Evans)
Kevin Emery ...
Himself - Survival School Instructor
Olav T. Oftedal ...
Himself - Nutritional Ecologist
Regina Eisert ...
Herself - Physiologist
David R. Pacheco Jr. ...
Himself - Journeyman Plumber
Samuel S. Bowser ...
Himself - Cell Biologist
Jan Pawlowski ...
Himself - Zoologist
William Jirsa ...
Himself - Linguist, Computer Expert
Karen Joyce ...
Herself - Traveler, Computer Expert
Libor Zicha ...
Himself - Utility Mechanic
Ashrita Furman ...
Himself - Multiple World Record Holder
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Storyline

Werner Herzog takes his camera to Antarctica where we meet the odd men and women who have dedicated their lives to furthering the cause of science in treacherous conditions. A scientist studies neutrinos, which are everywhere, yet elusive; he likens them to spirits. A researcher's nighttime performance art includes contorting her body into a luggage bag. A survival guide teaches his students to survive white-out conditions by wearing cartoon-face buckets over their heads. Animal researchers milk mother seals as part of their study. Volcanologists offer advice on what to do when a volcano erupts. A pipefitter shows us the anomaly in his hands that he says are a sign he descended from Atzec royalty. A former Colorado banker drives what he has christened Ivan the Terra Bus. An underwater diver shows his colleagues DVDs of apocalyptic sci-fi films like Them!. And -- though Herzog declares he's not "making another film about penguins" -- we meet a penguin researcher who answers the ... Written by J. Spurlin

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Genres:

Documentary

Certificate:

G | See all certifications »
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Details

Official Sites:

Country:

Language:

|

Release Date:

17 October 2008 (Spain)  »

Also Known As:

Rencontres au bout du monde  »

Filming Locations:


Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$17,730 (USA) (13 June 2008)

Gross:

$943,934 (USA) (31 October 2008)
 »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

Color:

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1
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Did You Know?

Trivia

Werner Herzog dedicated the film to Roger Ebert, who he calls a true "warrior of cinema". Due to the dedication Ebert could not review the film, but he wrote a complimentary letter to Herzog and later published it. See more »

Quotes

William Jirsa: So just imagine 90% of languages will be extinct probably in my lifetime. It's a catastrophic impact to an ecosystem to talk about that kind of extinction. Culturally we're talking about the same thing, I mean, you know, what if you lost all of Russian literature, or something like that. If you took all of the Slavic languages and they just went away. No more Tolstoy.
See more »

Connections

Features The Lone Ranger (1949) See more »

Soundtracks

"Planino Stara Planino Mari"
Written by Stefan Dragostinov
Performed by The Philip Koutev National Folk Ensemble
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User Reviews

 
Not your average science documentary
31 July 2008 | by (Toronto) – See all my reviews

Encounters at the End of the World is a quirky and interesting film, definitely a departure from your average dry science documentary or eye-candy nature film, though it has elements of both.

It focuses predominantly on the odd collection of people drawn to live in an Antarctic research station, and to a slightly lesser degree on the oddness of the region itself, and the bizarre bits of scientific trivia that can be found there. Then there the bonus meanderings about the ultimate doom of humanity and whether we originally emerged from the sea onto land to escape the "horror" of marine ecosystems.

Many of its parts are fascinating, but for me, it didn't quite come together as a whole. It drifted in a lot of different directions, but seemed overall to be lacking in focus a bit. There were also a couple of elements that disturbed me a little - one was the inconsistency of talking about how humanity is destroying itself one moment, and then bashing "tree huggers and whale huggers" the next. I guess it's OK to notice that we're damaging the world, but not to try and do something about it? The other was that in some cases he seemed to be going out of his way to depict the people he interviewed in embarrassing ways, with things like leaving the camera lingering on them after the interview appeared to be finished, as they stood nervously, apparently trying to figure out if it was over or not.

But on the whole I would recommend it -- the flaws are offset by some impressive visuals (especially the underwater footage), dry humour, interesting ideas to ponder, and a really great soundtrack by Henry Kaiser and David Lindley, which work very well with the oddness of the content.


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Recent Posts
A Rambling movie without direction in need of editing, wait for DVD pezzhull
Human Extinction? rip_strike
Adventurous Penguin resistance_boy
music, underwater scene chileboo
Languages dying out clive-ihd
Dedicated to Roger Ebert? romanticnihilist

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