Documentary Entry 7

Assessing Encounters at The End of The World is a difficult enough task normally. The additional difficultly of knowing Roger Ebert, a man I have equal reason to hate and respect has said his piece on it makes it what was already a Herculean task now a harder version as somebody else has already done it.

Ebert was a man who had controversial opinions towards things I like particularly video games and there role in art and human emotion, to say we strongly disagreed would be an understatement. But regardless our contrasting opinions there's one thing I'll say about Ebert: he knew what he was doing and if you're not trying to reach Ebert's level you might as well call it quits now.
The fact is I'm not Roger Ebert(at least not in reality) so anything I can say Ebert's already said and done better. Not that I'm not gonna try though I may have utmost respect for the man but he still said things I didn't like.

Right away there's a lot to say about this film. The director Werner Herzog narrates the film and his voice has a certain grab to it that whenever he speaks you as a viewer are drawn to listen. He could be doing the stock check at a supermarket and you'd be drawn into it all (something I call the Morgan Freeman Effect).

Werner has a knack for wonderful shots and it certainly helps he's got an impressive location to work with, he takes what could possibly be the world's worst holiday resort and turns into amazing scenery that takes the breath away.

On top of that Werner's got a unique of invoking emotions from an entity that I wouldn't really expect in a non fiction setting, in this case: a suicidal penguin. The punchline is that the scene with the penguin is surprisingly tragic as Werner makes it clear that this penguin is obsessed with going away from his chums and even if humans did intervene he'd just keep going on a journey he'll never finish.

To reiterate, I'm mourning the loss of a suicidal penguin! (Plus that documentary is 6years old if that penguins still alive now I think we've found the next superior species!)
In the end, Encounters At the End of the World is an interesting experience. It takes advantage of its location and the people in it, it looks amazing for a 3 man project and the narrator clearly cares about the subject dearly and delivers his narration in a way that draws you in from the word go. Overall, very good stuff well worth watching.