Reminds of a movie from Andrei Tarkovsky, Stalker. The guy may be the Stalker, leading people to the center of the Zone - the elephant foot in this case.
"We were shooting near Tallinn in the area around the small river Jägala with a half-functioning hydroelectric station. Up the river was a chemical plant and it poured out poisonous liquids downstream. There is even this shot in Stalker: snow falling in the summer and white foam floating down the river. In fact it was some horrible poison. Many women in our crew got allergic reactions on their faces. Tarkovsky died from cancer of the right bronchial tube. And Tolya Solonitsyn too. That it was all connected to the location shooting for Stalker became clear to me when Larisa Tarkovskaya died from the same illness in Paris."
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film)#Production...