My Werner Herzog Year

A beloved filmmaker, one weird little penguin, and me

I didn’t set out to watch all of Werner Herzog’s movies; all at once he just started popping up everywhere I went. I was writing about The Killers, and it turned out he’d made a documentary about them. I started researching volcanoes, and there he was on Mount Merapi. Loch Ness Monster? Been there, done that, helped make it funny. For months this Herzog trend continued. If I had an interest it felt like he’d been there, years ahead of me, and made a movie about it.

Herzog is a German filmmaker who’s been making movies for more than half a century. He’s especially known for his distinctive narration — so iconic that if you haven’t heard it yourself, you’ve probably heard it parodied. His interview style is deeply grounded in empathy, and his films are better for it. I’ve learned unfathomably much from this person I have never met.

What I’ve found in my life is that I don’t choose my creative guides; they pick me. (Usually through serendipity and random connection.) I think it’s important to identify those creatives who are like flashlights for you, illuminating possibilities in the path ahead. These people help you figure out what you think — about art, about the world, about the search for meaning.

I watched a lot of Herzog’s documentaries last year — Grizzly Man, Happy People, Lo and Behold. But if I could point to a single moment across his films that’s had the greatest impact on me, it is, in fact, a penguin.

Encounters at the End of the World documents Herzog’s time in Antarctica. It seems like nobody ends up on the continent without a fascinating backstory, and Herzog interviews many of these people. He spends some time talking to a marine ecologist, asking about things like penguin relationships and penguin insanity. In the clip that follows, we watch a group of penguins heading toward the open water, but one penguin breaks from the group. Rather than returning to the feeding grounds or his colony, he runs, inexplicably, toward the mountains.

Y’all. I am obsessed with this penguin. Many perspectives have been applied to this little guy. The penguin is lost. The penguin is depressed. The penguin is nihilistic. The penguin is disoriented, deranged, heading toward certain death. The comments on this clip are, of course, gold:

When I watch the penguin, all I can see is that he’s on a journey. It doesn’t quite fit the one that was laid out for him. He’s not doing what everyone else is doing. Maybe he doesn’t even know where he’s going to end up. But he knows what his next step is. And for the penguin, that’s enough.

I think many of us have felt like this penguin at one point or another. Like you’re on a journey others may not understand. But the penguin doesn’t stop to explain why he’s going his own way. The penguin is uninterested in justification. Maybe he doesn’t even know why yet himself.

You can always figure out the why later on, as you go. Sometimes I think that discovery is where the real magic is.

Happy New Year, y’all! Welcome to another year of Microfascination. See you again in February!