Addressing a taciturn marine ecologist who has spent 20 lonely years studying penguins, the director of this documentary about Antarctica asks him: “I’ve read about gay penguins. Do you believe that is true?” 

The film-maker is none other than Werner Herzog, the German director of more than 40 films, including classics such as The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and Aguirre, Wrath of God. So you would expect some odd questions. The ecologist confesses that he has really never thought about that aspect of penguin life.

Otherwise, this journey to McMurdo Station, the icy headquarters of the National Science Foundation and home to 1,100 people, is not as eccentric as you might expect, though Herzog delights in encountering scientists, researchers and even truck drivers — professional dreamers who have escaped from the normal world to this ugly mining town where the summer has no night.

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The film is beautifully shot both under the ice, where creatures roam in a place that would rival any sci-fi horror, and on it, where possibly gay penguins waddle the unending vistas of the huge Ross Sea together with the humans. Bits of ice as big as Sicily break off. It won’t be too long, Herzog says, before humans follow the mammoth into extinction. You fully expect Herzog to be there when this happens to make a film about it.