Werner Herzog has been known to bemoan the fate of a humankind bereft of images.
Unlike other creatures, we require fresh pictures for our very existence, says the maker of such wildly eclectic narrative and nonfiction features as “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” and “Grizzly Man.”
It will be the absence of new images that dooms us.
And so from the outset of his delightful, dour, magnanimous documentary “Encounters at the End of the World,” Herzog lets us know in his loamy German-accented English how we landed in Antarctica: images.
He was drawn to Earth’s southernmost reaches by footage that friend and master diver Henry Kaiser sent him.
“I’m trying to find new landscapes, new images, far in the horizon of vision and I try to grasp it,” says Herzog early one morning on the phone. “The images under the water of the ice shelf are unprecedented.”
The director was calling from New York City. (He lives in Los Angeles with his wife.) The night before, he visited “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”
“I didn’t know who he was, but I found him really entertaining,” says the director. “He’s much more radical in his way than Letterman or Leno. It was great fun.”
Fun may strike a dissonant chord for those familiar with Herzog’s reputation for intensity. And the director seems mindful of that tension, too.
“Please don’t forget this is also a very funny film,” he says of “Encounters.” “People who’ve seen it laugh so hard, harder than in an Eddie Murphy movie at some points.” He then laughs. “Sure, there are some serious things in it.”
If levity is at issue, it may be because some of the scientists Herzog interviews have pretty glum forecasts.
“In Antarctica, many of the scientists see our presence on this planet as no longer sustainable,” says Herzog, adding, “which doesn’t make me nervous at all.
“One voice that still rings within me is Martin Luther. Back in the 16th century, he was asked what would you do if the world ended tomorrow and Luther answered, ‘I would plant an apple tree.’ ”
The films many “encounters” with researchers and misfit adventurers exhibit a delicate compassion that vies with sterner ruminations.
Take, for instance, a moment with Libor Zicha. The McMurdo Station’s burly utility mechanic grows reticent when asked about his escape from Eastern Europe.
Instead of pushing him, Herzog beautifully lets him off the hook.
“I said, ‘You don’t have to talk about it,’ and you see the relief in him,” says Herzog.
Instead, they talk about “how wonderful he finds Antarctica and how his rucksack is always packed so he can travel at any moment.” Says the filmmaker, “That is freedom for him.”
Early in “Encounters,” the director recounts his pitch to the the National Science Foundation, which allowed him to travel to the continent. “I left no doubt that I would not come up with another film about penguins,” he says in voice-over. “My questions about nature, I let them know, were different.”
Yet, a poignant moment in the film features a lone penguin headed to parts unknown.
Herzog is a man of vital contradictions.
During the making of “Fitzcarraldo,” he and his crew hoisted a boat over a mountain in the Brazilian jungle.
Though one would expect it of him, the 65-year-old did not dive in Antarctica.
“I wish I could have done it,” he says. “But only the most expert divers are allowed to do that. In Antarctica the small community down there can’t afford any fatalities. Sometimes when I know there are people who can do this or that better than me, I have no problem delegating a task.”
He added with palpable yearning, “Frankly speaking, I would give a lot if I were able to dive under the ice shelf.” But his travels are rewarded just as deeply.
In “Encounters,” forklift operator Stefan Pashov talks about his grandmother reading “The Odyssey” to him as a young boy.
“He turned out to be a philosopher from Bulgaria,” says the director.
“He says something that struck me very deeply. He says, ‘and that’s when I fell in love with the world.’
“And I thought, yes, that’s why I ventured out in so many areas, why I made films all over the place. I just fell in love with the world.”
It can be tough, it can be existentially amused, but it is unmistakably love.
