Werner Herzog’s latest adventure deep into the heart of nature, Encounters at the End of the World, has been playing in New York for a little while now and will hopefully start playing across the country. I absolutely adored the film when I saw an advanced screening over the winter and don’t know if I have laughed as hard since.The film is a verité portrait of different people and groups all living and working in Antarctica. It is infused with lot’s of Herzog love and it shows, as his narration often proves to be more interesting than the folks he chooses to interview. The people he does choose to talk to include scientists, everyday workers and people who can’t seem to find their place elsewhere.

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After taking us to a POW camp in Laos, director Werner Herzog has his sights set on war town Burma in the late 1800’s for his next project. The Piano Tuner is being billed as a “a lush Victorian-era drama about a Brit’s journey to war-torn Burma” and will be released by Focus Features.

Based on Daniel Mason’s 2002 debut novel, the story centers on Edgar Drake, a man sent to a remote village in the late 1800s to repair an eccentric military man’s piano. Drake falls in love with a Burmese woman and her country, but as the officer wins over locals through music and medicine, things grow treacherous when his troops begin to suspect him of treason.

“Tuner” is right up the intense helmer’s alley. Herzog has directed several films about men venturing into exotic locales (”Rescue Dawn,” “Grizzly Man,” “Fitzcarraldo”), but this will be his biggest English-language costume drama in more than four decades as a filmmaker. [The Hollywood Reporter]

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