Review: Woyzeck

Meet Franz Woyzeck.

You think YOU've got it bad? Try being Woyzeck for a day. He's a grunt in an indeterminate mid-1800s European army—I assume German, but he could be German-French in the same sense that most movie Romans are British-Roman. He's being cuckolded by his young wife (who looks like Jewel Staite with a crushed spirit) and the high-school-quarterback-like drum major. He's also a human guinea pig for an ambitious scientist who's been feeding him nothing but peas, and who rewards him with much-needed cash every time he behaves crazily.

Naturally, therefore, Woyzeck's descending into insanity, and just as naturally, there's no going back…since this is a Werner Herzog film.

Review: The Wild Blue Yonder

Though 2005's The Wild Blue Yonder is a Werner Herzog film, don't go into it expecting any of his trademark narration. Though it largely consists of documentary footage, it can't really be called a documentary. And though it has a narrative—described by the opening titles as "a science fiction fantasy"—it is in no way a traditional one.

The story is self-evidently not meant to be taken at face value, as is the case with most science fiction. Let me explain. The Wild Blue Yonder has one actor—the always-adorable Brad Dourif—portraying an alien from the Andromeda galaxy. While standing in front of bleak terrestrial settings (like a seemingly abandoned town and a mobile home apparently hit by a tornado), Dourif explains—to the camera—how his people came to this planet, how the government launched a secret expedition into the far reaches of space in search of an alternative to Earth, and how this expedition discovered Dourif's homeworld. His exposition is overlaid with appropriately otherworldly footage from a space shuttle mission and from an Antarctic diving expedition, along with occasional snippets of interviews with astronomers.

Review: The White Diamond

The White Diamond is a continually intriguing and occasionally breathtaking documentary from Werner Herzog. This time Herzog turns his incisive eye on Graham Dorrington, a British aeronautical engineer trying to develop a small, highly maneuverable airship for studying the top of the jungle canopy (here's his website). But it turns out he's done this before, and with tragic consequences.

You can't help but wonder how Herzog finds these people and these situations. In this case I almost suspect his agent has standing orders to report to Herzog any and all eccentric-seeming types who're planning an ambitious project deep in the jungle. That, or Dorrington himself figured, "I'm an eccentric-seeming type who's planning an ambitious project deep in the jungle; maybe I ought to give Werner Herzog a call."

Review: Wheel of Time

As Herzog documentaries go, Wheel of Time is fairly sedate and un-unsettling. I guess that's to be expected, considering the subject matter is Tibetan Buddhism.

The drama comes from Herzog's examination of some intense, and intensely foreign, faithful and their practices. He shows us preparations for a massive Buddhist event (called the Kalachakra initiation) at Mahabodhi in Bodh Gaya; a later, similar event in Graz, Austria; a massive pilgrimage at the holy Mount Kailash; an interview with a Tibetan former political prisoner; and his conversation with the Dalai Lama. Each segment of the film has its own remarkable moments, but to give examples would spoil much of what makes Wheel of Time intriguing.