Post by Capo on Apr 26, 2008 1:42:04 GMT
The Wild Blue Yonder
Werner Herzog 2005 | UK / USA / France / Germany
An alien relates how he came to Earth but found it barren, and how humans have since explored his home planet.
An odd film in similar vein to Fata Morgana, presenting the earth and all its natural wonders as some sort of unique otherworld; a documentary, in essence, disguised as science-fiction (unless you read press notes, you're never sure if the NASA footage is actual archive material woven in, or staged scenes made to look 'real'). Dourif's voice-over is strangely compelling in its deliberate lament and confusion, though preachy and off-putting in bitterness at times, while the footage of his home planet (in actuality, the seldom-explored, quite beautiful regions of darkness beneath the Antarctic Ocean) is haunting and chilling; the score's gorgeous, too. One suspects (and admires) that Herzog could quite easily make a resounding straight documentary on the perils we're currently facing regarding the preservation of our planet - or, in less political terms, a doc simply on how beautiful our planet is - but it's not his style; abstract allegory is.
Werner Herzog 2005 | UK / USA / France / Germany
An alien relates how he came to Earth but found it barren, and how humans have since explored his home planet.
An odd film in similar vein to Fata Morgana, presenting the earth and all its natural wonders as some sort of unique otherworld; a documentary, in essence, disguised as science-fiction (unless you read press notes, you're never sure if the NASA footage is actual archive material woven in, or staged scenes made to look 'real'). Dourif's voice-over is strangely compelling in its deliberate lament and confusion, though preachy and off-putting in bitterness at times, while the footage of his home planet (in actuality, the seldom-explored, quite beautiful regions of darkness beneath the Antarctic Ocean) is haunting and chilling; the score's gorgeous, too. One suspects (and admires) that Herzog could quite easily make a resounding straight documentary on the perils we're currently facing regarding the preservation of our planet - or, in less political terms, a doc simply on how beautiful our planet is - but it's not his style; abstract allegory is.