***Advanced tickets for Tuesday, June 17 at 12:45 p.m. have sold out.  Standby tickets will be available at the AFI Silver box office approximately 45 minutes prior to showtime.  Tickets are not guaranteed and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.*** 

Eccentrics in exotic locations under extreme situations are a staple of Werner Herzog films. At McMurdo Station on Ross Island, Antarctica (the headquarters for the National Science Foundation), Herzog has struck the mother lode:  a cast of 1,100 scientists, researchers and other brave souls who have stepped off the grid in pursuit of adventure.  

We meet a researcher who hitched a ride from London to Nairobi in a garbage truck; a former banker who now drives “Ivan the Terra Bus;” a plumber descended from Aztec royalty; and a biologist who screens such beloved sci-fi B-movies as THEM! Herzog films a survival training for newcomers to the settlement; the exercise simulates blizzard conditions by making the participants wear plastic buckets on their heads and wander around in the snow. Later, Herzog leaves the settlement with elite scientists to explore the stunning depths beneath the ice at the Ross Sea, where new species are discovered. They also travel to the edges of the Mount Erebus volcano, where we learn about previous adventurers who, like Icarus who flew too high, ventured too close to the fire.

In a wink to a recent documentary blockbuster, Herzog says in his opening narration, “I had no doubt that I would not come up with another film about penguins.” Yet he finds himself in the company of a penguin biologist. Herzog observes what appears to be a penguin suicide, as a lone tuxedo-clad bird walks away from the flock towards Antarctica’s interior to its certain death. Or maybe it is stepping off its own grid in search of adventure.

—Jody Arlington