Encounters at the End of the World

What's the difference between an as yet unfilmed Planet Earth: Antarctica and Encounters at the End of the World, directed by Werner Herzog? If you answered that the former would concern itself with penguins, and the latter would concern itself with only one penguin-- the one that goes insane and wobbles, hobbles, and belly-flops itself thousands of miles to die alone in the mountains-- you'd be right. 

Herzog's latest film, in which the ice and water look so blue that their purity will absolve every unconfessed carnal sin within you (Like, for example, the Ass's ironic hatred of every furry animal that ever lived-- and this is especially true if you're witnessing the blueness on one of them fancy pants blu-ray players, for obvious reasons), the film is also about invisible spirits. Both in terms of the unknowns of the scientific world and their remains on a frozen continent, and in terms of the spirits that inhabit the people who voluntarily freeze their nuts off. Yet despite our efforts to solve the puzzles of life by inventing all sorts of gadgets to help us withstand the freezing conditions, Herzog makes us feel even colder by reminding us that we are temporary creatures living on a planet that is far less concerned with us than we are concerned with it. In the context where we are nothing but the second and more irritating coming of the dinosaurs (e.g. have you ever heard a dinosaur Hee-Haw about coming in second place of Fantasy Baseball?), it makes perfect sense why this movie is, really, about nothing more than the abomination that are aerobics and yoga classes.