Two Blurbs: Encounters at the End of the World and Derek

After heading “into the wild,” so to speak, with Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog heads south to another remote corner of the globe, Antarctica, in Encounters…. Thankfully, he also narrates, as I love his voice (I was particularly hung up on the way he said “Demons” in Grizzly Man). It’s an often beautifully shot look at a place I have absolutely no desire to visit. The film’s tagline is “Off the map, things get strange.” Well, they don’t actually get that strange. But with Herzog at the helm you know they’ll be interesting.

Herzog’s first port of call is McMurdo research station, an ugly facility, as he aptly notes. But he quickly makes connections with the myriad folks working at the place, many of whom have surprising histories. I particularly enjoyed a brief scene where the scientists are relaxing by watching the movie Them! (about giant ants). As a child, my father woke me up early one morning so we could watch it on TV. And some of the crew have even darker views of the future than I do, I suppose not surprisingly, given their field of work. One, for example, posited that the extinction of the human race was a certainty. I’ve thought that myself, and haven’t always regarded it as a bad thing (especially after watching the evening news). But this time it made me rather sad. Perhaps because the environment — outside of McMurdo — was so picturesque. Then again, without humans it’ll stay that way.

Though insisting he’s not about to make another film about penguins, Herzog nonetheless spends a little time with them, in addition to trying to coax further info about the birds out of a recalcitrant scientist. Are there any gay penguins? Do penguins ever go insane? While the scientist allows he hasn’t seen any “smashing their heads against a rock,” we do later encounter some that are clearly on the edge. The cameras go underwater too, another beautiful, if somewhat claustrophobic, landscape.

One major irritant: the Middle Eastern tinged singers whose wailing was so high pitched it hurt my ears. I felt the film ran a little long. It’s also a slower paced film as nothing overly dramatic happens. Still, it’s a largely engaging look at another world.

May 31, 7 pm, Uptown; June 4, 7 pm, Egyptian

The first Derek Jarman film I saw was Jubilee, largely because two of the Rocky Horror Picture Show stars appeared in it. The screening was at small cinema in London. The punks in the audience were pleased to see Adam Ant in action, but the slower parts of the film bored them, and they began cat-calling, hurling bottles, and eventually rampaging around the cinema. It was quite a memorable occasion.

And that was my introduction to Jarman, the iconoclastic filmmaker (The Last Of England, Edward II) who also did videos for the likes of the Smiths and Pet Shop Boys, and died of AIDS-related illness in 1994. Derek is an affecting and affectionate look at Jarman, written, narrated, and executive produced by Tilda Swinton (who appeared in Jarman’s films). It’s also largely narrated by Jarman himself, via the numerous interviews he did, with Swinton (one of those lucky people who actually looks better as they grow older) providing a sort of linking commentary. In other words, it’s not a series of talking heads sharing their reminiscences.

I enjoyed this film a lot. Despite having interviewed Jarman once, I didn’t know a great deal about his background, and as the film explores his visual art side as well (one of his early jobs was designing sets for Ken Russell’s The Devils), I learned a great deal I hadn’t known before. Home footage of Jarman’s bohemian life in the ‘60s and ‘70s makes the era look wonderful; free wheeling and high-spirited, so different from the ever more tightly controlled, and corporate run world of today (lacking the internet and YouTube, etc., it also took longer for underground movements to be assimilated into the mainstream). Jarman deliberately chose not go mainstream, realizing it would mean limiting his audience, but more relishing the ability to do as he pleased with his work. Anyone interested in learning more about Jarman, and how he regarded his own artistic endeavors, should enjoy this film.

June 5, 7 pm, Harvard Exit; June 7, 4:30 pm, Harvard Exit