Film

Herzog’s films always pit their subjects against what he calls—in Grizzly Man—“the overwhelming indifference of nature.” In that sense, Antarctica makes an ideal stomping ground for the wry Teutonic explorer. Commissioned to make a documentary on the frozen continent by the National Science Foundation, Herzog eschews would-be IMAX material and focuses instead on McMurdo research station, which he likens to a “mining town” filled with “professional dreamers.” There’s the linguist who mourns extinct languages on a continent that has no languages at all; the man introduced only half-ironically as a “philosopher–professional forklifter”; the woman who traveled from Ecuador to Peru in a sewer pipe; the biologist who feels more at home among penguins than humans.

Ever fascinated by quixotic quests, Herzog finds no shortage of single-minded eccentrics to interview. Even when the film veers into more standard nature-doc material—giant volcanoes, Atari-like seal songs—the thrust is decidedly against comprehension. “Is there such a thing as insanity among penguins?” Herzog asks, before watching a disoriented penguin waddle off toward certain death. He’s a kindred spirit to Herzog’s Aguirre—and maybe even McMurdo’s humans. At one point, Herzog attends “survival camp,” in which campers are instructed to simulate Antarctic storm conditions by putting buckets on their heads. Lost in their own backyard, they form a perfectly Herzogian tableau on the capriciousness of human instinct.