Customer Rating: 
Summary: A Haunting Visit With Society's Human Fringe
Comment: Although this visit to Antarctica contains stunning sequences of nature-seen-nowhere-else, "Encounters" is more profoundly a documentary about fringe humans drawn to a fringe environment. These are people you won't forget.
Nature somehow survives in this barren, frozen wasteland. Likewise, the international, diverse collective of humans who work & live in Antarctica represents a strain of hardcore humanity & broken idealism that you might be surprised to discover actually exists. Each of the characters that Herzog meets uphold his lifelong interest in the rare humans who are drawn to the extreme frontier within themselves.
These people are an endangered species themselves. Their poignant stories' outcome, or even their survival, isn't always clear. In one haunting sequence, Herzog documents a loner penguin who has rejected his species and is waddling unstoppably toward the mountains where certain death awaits. Like the humans drawn to Antarctica, this loner animal's torment is unknowable but undeniable. The elegiac mystery beckons.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Herzog's Antarctica
Comment:
Werner Herzog is one of those unique directors that never give you quite what you expect, but always satisfy. This film, in amazingly clear and crisp "blu-ray" makes you feel as if you are on Antarctica and underwater. In fact, you feel every scene as Hertoz has a talent of pulling you into the picture. There is no dispute that a blu-ray player and a good flat screen television is just about as great an experience that you can achieve nowadays and Herzog takes it to task.
The scenes are massive in scale and include glaciers, mountains, underwater breathtaking scenes, human interaction and a thorough dissection of the land and the people that occupy this one outpost. Hertoz narrates the film with not just his comments on the amazing scenery, but his personal interactions with the people living there to study. There is plenty of heartbreaking and amazing history throughout the film (i.e., Shackleton's journey). The characters are both normal and odd. Traveling to this location in a huge specialized plane shows the crew in each of their unique positions; sleeping in bags on the floor, strapped into less than comfortable looking chairs, tents set up inside the aircraft, conversations both normal and strange. At times explaining their interest in the areas conditions and their own methods of survival - some of which are quite funny, if the consequences of dying were not so real.
The cinematography is the real star here and with copious amounts of blue and white surrounding you, the feeling is surreal. There are no cute penguins or whales, just great shots of bizarre looking starfish that move and clams that snap open and shut as they travel through the water. The underwater visibility is impeccably clear. The ice cutting, severe wind and blizzards make the experience real. This is another place with unique individuals all filmed in magically and frightening real circumstances.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Comment: There are movies, there are directors, and then there are masterpieces and masterful directors. Encounters is a true masterpiece, especially taken within the body of Herzog's work. This is a documentary first, much like Grizzly Man. Grizzly Man
The film in Antarctica itself is goregous. There is a subtle construction by Herzog that feels at first like a random documentary, but then builds over time to something much more than simply another film about "cute penguins", or planet earth. There is a below the ice and above the ice aspect to this film, physically and about the people. I loved the music, it fits so perfectly with the rythmn. The filming is done extremely well.
Early in the film Herzog promises to not make another film about cute penguins, and he certainly delivers. Although there is a short sequence about a cute penguin, lost walking the wrong direction with such determination to his certain death.
The bonus features in this DVD package are incredible. Aside from the extra footage under the water and flying in a helicopter, there is a second disc. The second disc is almost worth the price of admission, Johnathan Demme (director of Silence of the Lambs) interviews Werner Herzog for an hour and a half. The conversation is incredible. Demme opens the conversation reading a letter from Roger Ebert to Herzog(this film is dedicated to Roger). Suffice it to say, there is nothing I can possibly add to the full conversation. You will have to watch this amazing exchange.
Herzog apparently is highly influenced by music and sound. There is a fairly significant thread through this film dealing with both. Within two days I have watched two films where sound played a very major role or was another character in the film. I can very highly recommend Fraulein. If you love film, I think you will find Fraulein equally engaging.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not "another fluffy penguin movie"
Comment: Werner Herzog turns his unique and cosmic gaze on Antarctica and the scientists who work there, and gives us a fascinating and totally unexpected glimpse into this strangest of earthly habitats. Herzog's mind is so interesting that I would imagine even his reflections on the municipal phone book would be of interest, but when he gets to Antarctica and begins to explore the eccentric personalities, exotic wildlife, and extreme geological phenomena, you're in for an extraordinary film experience. I enjoyed it as much as "Burden of Dreams," which is brilliant.
Customer Rating:
Summary: great dvd extras
Comment: What the current Amazon listing does not explicitly mention is the wealth of DVD EXTRAS that accompany the 100 minute feature in this 2-DVD set.
ABOVE THE ICE
BELOW THE ICE
SEALS & MEN
DIVE LOCKER INTERVIEW
SOUTH POLE EXORCISM
JONATHAN DEMME INTERVIEWS WERNER HERZOG
+ a hidden "Easter Egg" extra: SEAL MEN, an Antarctic Parody of Herzog's GRIZZLY MAN, with weddell seals replacing grizzly bears
all and all this is over 3 hours of EXTRAS!
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