No director demonstrates Werner Herzogs gift for depicting the crushing inhuman power of natural landscapes, and the way that power transforms the human subject into something problematic. The vast empty splendor of Antarctica represents the quintessential Herzog setting and inspiration, with the physicists, biologists and vocanologists Herzog interviews " each struggling to extract meaning from this place " functioning as both comic and heroic doppelgangers within the directors visionary enterprise. With Herzogs penchant for lyrical speculation balanced by solid scientific and historical fact, Encounters reveals a place that exists wholly apart from our prosaic day-to-day human society, and represents a decisive work by an artist at the height of his powers. "Larry Gross, Telluride Film Festival (98 min.)