When the National Science Foundation sent acclaimed film director Werner Herzog to Antarctica to shoot a documentary, they may have been hoping that he might return with a message of oncoming global climactic disaster, evidenced in the swift melting of the great icebergs that cluster the shores of this barren consistent, or a sad picture of the ways in which the pristine snowy wilderness has been marred by humankind’s insatiable need to map the unknown, plant flags and harvest resources. Perhaps they even were hoping for a more traditional document on the hardy yet adorable animal life that somehow have managed to make their homes in the polar netherzone. But as it turns out, Mr. Herzog’s questions were different, and even before embarking on this journey he made it clear that his questions were different, and emphasized that he would not, in fact “...make yet another film about penguins.”

Encounters at the End of the World is about, more than anything else, the people who have, for myriad reasons, ended up living and working in the harshest climates in the world. These encounters include engineers, heavy machinery operators, survival school instructors, mechanics, teachers, line cooks, divers, volcanologists, and even a linguist, who, since there are no languages native to this wasteland, decided to grow fresh produce in a greenhouse in order to stay busy.

But perhaps the most compelling aspect of the film is Mr. Herzog’s take on the world around him. Much of the film features his narration — a deep, hypnotic voice riddled with charming syntactical idiosyncrasies — and he has no issue with sharing his own perspective on man’s place in nature. While much of the world is deeply concerned with the impact human development may be having on our planet, Mr. Herzog sees things a little differently; within a much larger context.

His film captures beautifully the raw, majestic power of nature, and against that backdrop we are introduced to a cast of characters that are so wonderfully strange and so filled with wonder and pure curiosity that the viewer leaves the film feeling as though much of the doomsaying going on around the world is not taking in the full picture: Our world is more massive, more magical and more powerful than any of us can conceive, and even though the human race might destroy itself, our home and all of its wonders will live on.

“A poem of oddness and beauty,” is how Roger Ebert described it in the Chicago Sun-Times. “Herzog is like no other filmmaker, and to return to him is to be welcomed into a world vastly larger and more peculiar than the one around us. The underwater photography alone would make a film, but there is so much more.”

Encounters at the End of the World screens next Friday, Jan. 9 at 7:30 p.m. at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, 54 Spring street in Vineyard Haven. Doors open 30 minutes prior to screening time for admissions. Admission is $8 and $5 for Martha’s Vineyard Film Society members. A short introduction precedes each screening. For more information, visit mvfilmsociety.com, or call 774-392-2972.

— Cooper Davis