Encounters At The End Of The World

Filmmaker Werner Herzog went to Antarctica, and he filmed the people there.

That much, was a really good idea. In that Antarctica is a really weird and
amazing place, and the people who live there are really weird and amazing
people. There's a lot of cool science going on down there, hippy dropout
travellers seem to wash up there, it's a whole other world.

Unfortunately, Herzog also felt that he needed to narrate and score this film.
So a lot of the time, all you hear is Herzog's frankly droning and insight-free
reflections on the place and the people. There are times when there are
actually really interesting people talking, and Herzog dubs over them, drowning
them out, telling us what they are saying. The ego required for that is
*astounding*. And irritating.

The rest of the time, there is a really, *really* loud music soundtrack, which
comes in two flavours - tuneless ethereal choral music, and tuneless spiritual
string ensemble that sounds like a building creaking in the wind. I'd like to
emphasise how *really* loud it was. Loud and *constant*. So (while Herzog isn't
talking over them) you have all these residents of Antarctica telling us how
really silent Antarctica is, and then when we're actually trying to look at
antarctica, and experience that, there's this intrusive and inappropriate
racket going on. I genuinely nearly walked out near the end because I was sick
of it.

I'd love to see a documentary on this subject. I'd love to see Attenborough do
it. I'd love to see Louis Theroux do it. I'd like to see *this* one with the
music and director's commentary stripped off. This, however, was rendered and
irritating and frustrating mess.