2016 - INTO THE INFERNO, more Herzog ranting

When it comes to the subject of volcanoes, Werner Herzog would seem to be your man.  With that voice and his typical pessimistic view of the world it would seem that Into The Volcano would be a nice way to watch some great visuals and hear some sour commentary. 

However even for Herzog this film seems more disjointed than usual.  The pretext of traveling around to look at some of the world's greatest volcanoes is merely and excuse for some rambling scenes involving native tribes, bone collecting and a visit to North Korea for some reason.

As usual in a Herzog film the the images are very arresting but even the scenes of the massive volcano eruptions  can't compensate for the disjointed nature of this film.

Kind of a disappointment.

104 minutes

2013 - FROM ONE SECOND TO THE NEXT, Werner Herzog's texting while driving documentary is good but mighty harrowing

Apparently the major cell phone providers approached Herzog about directing a PSA about the dangers of texting while driving.  They certainly picked the right man, This is a very good documentary and really tough to watch short film.

Herzog focuses on four different stories the two middle stories in particular are extremely moving.  Herzog is one of the masters of the modern documentary form although I can't recall him making a film which delivers a real "in your face" message about texting while in a moving vehicle.

Here's the YouTube link.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BqFkRwdFZ0

Film making as a manipulative emotional teaching tool, extremely well done.

35 minutes.

2010 - CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, another odd documentary from Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog and a small film crew enter the Chauvet cave in southern France to photograph cave paintings that are probably 32,000 years old.  

The Cave of Forgotten Dreams is another meditation by Werner Herzog on art and the human condition.  For a Herzog documentary this is a relatively restrained piece of film without a lot of the expected weirdness that is a Herzog documentary.

  There is something fascinating about seeing this cave art and knowing that primitive man has already gone where... well whatever.

It would hardly be a Herzog film without some kind of ultimate bizarre stuff somewhere in the film and Herzog's postscript involves nuclear power plants and albino alligators because why wouldn't it.

90 minutes, written by Werner Herzog of course.

1991 - Werner Herzog's LESSONS OF DARKNESS

Herzog's film of the Gulf War oil fires filmed in 1991, appears to be aiming for something bigger than the standard documentary put out a fire thing. I would venture to guess it is some sort of hallucinatory vision of the end of the world set in a literally burning desert hell. The film is particularly effective when the oil fires are being photographed from a helicopter that slowly flies near them and in some cases even through them.

The background music consisted of Wagner, Mahler and Grieg. The music adds a deliberate grandeur to the fire imagery of the film reinforcing the "fires in Hell" theme. Herzog's only interview is with a woman who has seen her children die during the war and has lost the power to speak. I would assume that people living in hell don't get much of a chance to speak for themselves.

The film is about an hour long and is available on YouTube.