CRITICS’PICKS

When Werner Herzog accepted an invitation from the National Science Foundation to make a film in Antarctica, he made it clear that it would not be a film about penguins. His questions about nature tended toward the bizarre -- he wondered why men felt the urge to disguise their identities with masks and feathers, for example. “Encounters” doesn’t answer these questions but instead presents a series of portraits of people who end up on the continent that has become a symbol of our eventual demise. (Editor’s note: Carina Chocano will be out on maternity leave.)