I'm a pretty big Werner Herzog fan. I loved Grizzly Man. I loved Aguirre, Wrath of God, especially Herzog's commentary track. His performance in Incident at Loch Ness was amazing. I enjoyed The Burden of Dreams slightly more than Fitzcarraldo or My Best Fiend but I appreciate the whole narrative as documentary idea and vice versa. In this film, I was happy to see Brad Dourif stick his mug in the camera as a crazy alien. I went to see this at a Portland Werner Herzog mini-festival because I read that although the work was made for the BBC, the photography had to be appreciated on the big screen. I couldn't disagree more. The photography, home movies of people floating around in a space capsule or diving in a poorly lit sea looked like outtakes from any decent nature documentary. If accompanied by the experiences of the participants, it still could have been a decent show. If reconfigured as a clever twist on the imagery, a la Woody Allen's What's Up Tiger Lily? it might have held my interest. Unfortunately, the poor photography was, for the most part, accompanied by music. I have no problem with this. I enjoyed Koyaanisqatsi and Man With a Movie Camera. But here, the images are boring and the music (pseudo-throat singing and scratchy amateurish cello ambiance) is grating. As an example of the poor quality of the imposed story, here's an example. The explanation of divers swimming toward the light of a whole cut in an ice cap are explained as astronauts transporting themselves by disintegrating themselves into pure light and reconfiguring at the other end. It's an amazing visual effect, I suppose for someone who has never noticed that looking through water in a glass distorts an image. Then again, anyone under three would be bored to tears by the images of a scientist nodding off during an interview. This experience is probably closest to something like Andy Warhol's Sleep, which was a long, unbroken shot of someone sleeping for a guy sleeping for five hours. I could have take a nap during that, though. The music in this film kept jarring me awake. I rarely post negative comments. Why bother? But if I can convince one Herzog fan to watch this on DVD, where he can turn it off, instead of sitting through it in a theater, I will have provided a useful public service.
Review of The Wild Blue Yonder
