Herzog says as much when he visits Indonesia in this film, accompanied by Professor Clive Oppenheimer, his volcanologist friend and presenter.
They are puny, insignificant against their chosen adversary, nature – born with death sentences hanging like a noose around their necks, but also with unrelenting ambition. Films like Grizzly Man, Encounters at the End of the World are all driven by eccentric men at their centre, isolated at the outer reaches of civilisation, and their extraordinary dreams. (Netflix)įor decades, he has obsessed, like so many of his characters, about one idea, the theme that connects several of his films – from the fictional ones like Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, the Wrath of God to his documentaries (which I prefer). Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer (L), take a peek Into The Inferno. In the words of the great critic Roger Ebert, “Even his failures are spectacular.”įortunately, Into the Inferno is one of his better ones. He is a philosopher, a thinker of the highest order. He isn’t just investigating their importance to different cultures around the world, from the birthplace of humanity in Ethiopia to the birthplace of North Korean dictatorship. Here, he isn’t simply talking about volcanoes, and the all-consuming power they wield. He finds magic in the unlikeliest places.
His words, the cadence with which he says them elevates his subjects. He made a short film about it in 1977 (La Soufrière) and will revisit it for his next fiction film, also due out this year (Salt and Fire).ġ3th review: Ava DuVernay directs one of the best films of the year But for Into the Inferno, Herzog returns to a subject that has fascinated him for years. In Lo & Behold, he brought his trademark existentialism in an examination of artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the Internet - even offering Elon Musk to be his test subject as they send people on one-way trips to Mars. Into the Inferno, his newest documentary, comes just a few months after his last one, and in true Herzog fashion, both films couldn’t be more different. To not quote Herzog, one of the bravest, most important filmmakers to ever pick up a camera, and certainly the one blessed with the most iconic voice since Elvis, would be like going to one of The King’s shows and not humming the songs on your way back home. There will be many quotes in this review. No permanence to science.” These are words you could only hear in a Wener Herzog film, spoken, hopefully, in that famed, unmistakably meditative monotone, by the legend himself. No permanence to what we are doing, no permanence to the efforts of human beings. “The soil that we are walking upon is not permanent.