As far as the movies go, I tend to prefer the docs (with the exception of "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans," which is so batshit nuts I find it epically rewatchable). The features can be incredibly ponderous, and tend to bury Herzog's insanity under about a million layers of self importance. The docs, on the other hand, are alternately lyrical, grandiose, intimate, energetic, and absolutely cracked in some fundamental way.
The subject of "Grizzly Man" — the tragic story of a conservationist/legit crazy person named Timothy Treadwell who went to go live with the grizzlies until one decided to up and eat him and his girlfriend — is already fascinating before Herzog gets his mitts on it. Herzog pieces together hours and hours of Treadwell's own footage to assemble a chilling portrait of a guy at the end of his rope.
But Herzog's not done there. He uses the occasion as a vehicle to explore his own notions of madness, obsession, naivete, and the cruelty of the natural world. He narrates the film himself, and there's something about the German accented Slytherin-hiss of his voice that burrows into you like the buzz of an insect laying eggs in your ear canal.
He also knows how to build a scene, finding drama in simple interactions with those who knew Treadwill. He doesn't cut when you expect him to, often lingering just a beat too long on an interview subject's face. The effect is uncanny: we see the masks teeter a bit, the eyes get a little scared and rabbity, and somehow we get a sense of lurking insanity within all of us. I don't even quite know how he does it.
Herzog's cynicism might be a bit hard for some people to swallow, but it's hard to argue that it's not justified when we learn the full details of Treadwell's fate. It's truly unsettling in the way no fiction film can quite be.
1 comment:
On so many levels, that's a very enjoyable opening paragraph.
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