The White Diamond - Werner Herzog (2004)

I am not sure how he does it but Herzog does it over an over again. He's the master of documentaries.

If you analyse most of his documentaries he uses the same formula: find an interesting topic, find interesting characters, go to a unique location... oh and yes, you can't forget Herzog's madness and his Bavarian accent. You can say that's his secret and it works every single time.

The White Diamond begins with an engineer making a flying device. You find out early on that he has a haunting memory: it's not his first experiment, someone died trying to make a film and he is traumatised. But the story will unravel slowly, interestingly... only great story-telling can do that, and that is actually the secret Herzog has mastered.

The landscape is beautifully photographed and the sound is extremely well used. The sound of the canopy, the noise of the waterfall... when we finally hear the accident's story you can almost imagine it. The music is very well chosen and it's just go really well with the images.

I hope never stops making documentaries, I hope he never stops finding stories and characters that are as crazy as he is. ♥

Cave of Forgotten Dreams - Werner Herzog (2010)

How does Herzog finds such interesting characters? I feel I have written this before. He does it again in this film. 

I was a little disturbed. I still can't imagine thousands and thousands of years... and how humans managed to have survived that long. It's mind-blowing how some paintings in this cave were done thousands of years apart and are still well preserved. It's also amazing how it took them so long to discover this cave (fortunately!)

The people Herzog meets are always fascinating, the former circus artist geologist? The perfumer sniffing the cave?! The playing the flute dressed in fur?! 

The sound could have been better... the eerie place needed eerier sounds, not so much music, the cave needed a voice and an ambience. 

Lots of links:

Details of production and reviews on Herzog's website

Very very interesting interview with Herzog's Bavarian accent talking about Science and Art

The article that made Herzog want to make this documentary

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Little Dieter Needs to Fly - Werner Herzog (1998)

Is  there a better documentary film maker than Herzog? I doubt it. He's terribly good at finding the right stories and the best characters.

Dieter Dengler was a German born pilot who grew up in a poor post-war Germany. He moved the the US and was sent to Vietnam... and was held prisoner in a camp until he managed to escape. His life and story are just unbelievable. But there many ways you can make a documentary about him, with his testimony, archive footage.. Herzog uses both, but the most impressive thing is that he takes him back to Germany, Vietnam, Laos to tell his story and even do a re-enactment of his captivity. You can't help thinking how crazy and bold they are... which helps it be an amazing documentary.

There's not much to say. You are engaged to his story during all the film, Herzog doesn't need a lot more than his main character.

Little Dieter Needs to Fly

Wheel of Time - Werner Herzog (2003)

The subject of this documentary is interesting: a religious ritual about salvation. A Buddhist ritual about Enlightenment, in this case. It's very colourful, very visually attractive, it's got the careful making of a Mandala which is later destroyed, it features the Dalai Lama. Still it's mainly about religion, religious leaders and how people follow rituals.

I expected more from Herzog. I expected him to talk about a big theme, he does that well. It's an okay documentary but it isn't extraordinary. It made me think how Buddhism isn't considered as a religion as much as a philosophy. But it is that, with rules, leaders, ranks, rituals...

Wheel of Time

Happy People: A year in the Taiga - D. Vasyukov / W. Herzog (2010)

This is not an entirely Herzog documentary. It's very beautiful to watch, very interesting, well done... I think the human side is very much Herzog's influence. It's the story of simple people, hardworking all year around. It's well structured too. I think the problem with it is the dubbing. Perhaps it was the version I saw that had voice over every interviewee. I think dubbing is just wrong, but in this case it was terrible. In such an intimate film about people you need to hear their real voices, empathise with them, identify the way they sound... it didn't happen and it was a shame.

Nicely done interesting documentary, dubbing hurted it though.

Burden of Dreams - Les Blank (1982)

I haven't seen Fitzcarraldo. Can it be better then the documentary about Herzog making it? I'm sure it's a fiction version of it. Just like Apocalypse Now seems to be about Coppola's own madness too (it also has its matching documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse). But nobody is crazier than Herzog and that's why he's so likeable.

How far can a filmmaker with a dream go? How long will a crew stand by him and his dream? Herzog seems to push all of that to the limit.

This documentary isn't innovative in any way, it's very classic, so classic it becomes invisible. You forget the people making it also spent that amount of time in the middle of the jungle with the crew. That's a good thing in this case where the story it's telling is so interesting.

Burden of Dreams

Encounters at the End of the World - Werner Herzog (2007)

At the beginning of the documentary Herzog says he's not going to make a film about fluffy penguins. And he doesn't. His fluffy creatures are human, the strangest of them who end up working in Antarctica. You do wonder how Herzog ends up finding characters who are just as crazy as he is. 

Recently I saw the BBC Frozen Planet series. They also have an episode about people who live in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. But they are so different in so many ways. 

Herzog's documentary isn't just a nature show... it's a story about people. It's human, it's engaging, it's thought-provoking... it's a proper cinema documentary rather than a television one. His characters are very well found. You don't know who's the strangest one and who's your favourite. 

The Frozen Planet is beautifully filmed with all sort of HD technology and slow-motion cameras. Herzog doesn't need all this. Apparently James Cameron wanted to do the project  as well , with 36 people as crew. Herzog won because he only took a cameraman and himself as sound recordist. It's still works very well with a minor budget.

There's also a nice choice of music and sounds. Perhaps because his music collaborator/friend was very involved in the project as he is also an expert diver. The underwater sounds are amazing. One thing I wasn't sure about the Frozen Planet was if the sounds were all dubbed or how were they recorded. I never saw any sign of a sound crew in the making of (and very limited credits) - something that doesn't make sense with the big budget HD photography.

I think the best thing about it is the questions it raises. Why and how do the strangest people end up in such a remote place? Did humans evolve to escape the underwater world? Are we, like dinosaurs, meant to disappear from Earth some time in the future?

Oh! And there are penguins in it after all! Lost  and deranged, just like everyone else in the film.

Encounters at the End of the World