framing device

I’m a much bigger fan of Werner Herzog’s documentaries than I am of his fiction films, so a new Herzog doc is something to celebrate (and attend). Encounters at the End of the World is another movie in which he explores the limits of human and animal experience, this time by traveling to Antarctica. Early on, Herzog asks, “Who was I going to meet” at the bottom of the world? It turns out that they’re a number of kindred souls: wanderers and explorers and “professional dreamers,” people who could never stay in one place physically or mentally, and wouldn’t want to. Sounds like Herzog himself.

The portrait of Antarctica–the people who work there and the animals who live there–is fascinating. Some of the underwater footage is awe-inspiring, as we get a sense of the incredible diversity in one of the coldest places on the planet. It’s no surprise that Herzog gets his jabs in at other animal documentaries, especially one about marching penguins. He highlights one biologist’s claim that animals moved out of the sea onto land to get away from the horrific conditions of nature underwater. And instead of focusing on penguin love, he’s fascinated by the “insane penguin” that marches into the middle of nowhere.

Encounters can’t reach the pinnacle of Grizzly Man, though, in part because it’s too diffuse. By interviewing so many kinds of scientists and adventurers (including a bus driver and a repairman), the portrait that emerges is exceptionally broad but not always terribly deep. There’s also a sense in which Herzog borders on self-parody in his narration, ridiculing yoga classes and instead grasping for the “great day,” as he puts it to one scientist who reluctantly agrees that finding three new species of underwater life qualifies. But I also sympathize with Herzog, who wonders if our settling of Antarctica is a mistake–that maybe we should leave some white, uncharted spaces on our maps just to inspire our dreams.

The Pope’s Toilet is a drama from Uruguay that starts out promisingly but loses steam in its last act. It’s a classic tale of a husband who hits on a way to strike it rich and the wife who skeptically wonders whether that kind of striving is reaching too high. In this case, the husband’s idea is to hit the toilet. Or build a toilet, I should say. With Pope John Paul II coming to town and so many other townsfolk planning to cook for the expected pilgrims, he assumes that those same pilgrims might also pay for a comfortable bathroom, and so he sets out to build one.

The story didn’t do much for me, as it’s clear early on what the result will be (has a get rich scheme ever gone off without a hitch in modern storytelling?). But I loved the portrait of this community: a group of smugglers on bicycles bringing goods across from Brazil and trying to avoid the customs inspector. The relationship between the husband and the wife is also fine, and the character of their teen daughter (who dreams of being a radio announcer) is original and thematically interesting. But when the husband’s plan starts to go awry and the movie loses track of its secondary characters, I started to lose interest. Not bad, though, and it’s always enjoyable to see a portrait of a part of the world I’ll otherwise never see.

The final film of the day treads somewhat familiar ground for lovers of Iranian cinema: the plight of women. Unfinished Stories looks at three different women all dealing with . . . well, I won’t spoil it for you. In many ways, the film evokes Jafar Panahi’s The Circle, in how it transitions from one story to the next, but I liked this one even better, as it didn’t feel as schematic and didactic as Panahi’s. Director Pourya Azarbayjani, making his feature debut, has a nice way with actors, and I appreciate that he explores the role of class as well as gender.

Not all of Azarbayjani’s decisions work. I was baffled by his loud, awkward sound design, which highlights city noises in artificial ways. For an otherwise naturalist approach, that seemed an odd choice, though I did enjoy how he uses a recording on an MP3 player. I also didn’t agree with his decision to have a recurring silent character, ala the angel in Kieslowski’s Decalogue mini-series. On the positive side, I appreciated how he integrates male characters into the story. The film is mostly about women, but how well-meaning men navigate these waters makes for a more rounded picture.

Tomorrow is my last five-film day, as we start to enter the home stretch.

Encounters at the End of the World: four stars, out of five
The Pope’s Toilet: three stars
Unfinished Stories: three 1/2 stars