The Circuit

Ken Burns introduced Werner Herzog as the only filmmaker in the Guinness Book of World Records who has shot a film on every continent, Antarctica being the last.  Herzog admitted that when he got the money from the Discovery Channel for his new doc, “Encounters at the End of the World,” he still had no idea what it was going to be about.  All he had was footage from under the ice shelf – a cathedral of light and silence that moved him.  He had to get there.  “Encounters” is a fantastic travelogue of a place few people will go; one only Herzog could put together.  He finds many of his old characters there.  The glaciologist who feels the scream of the iceberg beneath his feet.  The shop mechanic who believes he’s descended from Aztec kings.  And the computer scientist, who has the best reasons for why this station attracts a unique kind of person – “Everyone who’s not tied down falls to the bottom of the earth.”