Are You There Kent Williams? It's Me, Skip

I am beginning to suspect that I'm the only person in this country that has absolutely no desire to see the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. (That's pronounced "kuh-nig-it".) Nor have I seen director Christopher Nolan's previous Batman flick, Batman Begins. Lots of the blogs I read regularly have reviewed it and there's much speculation about the film as a commentary on life in the reign of Dubya. Plus Heath Ledger's performance is drawing all sorts of posthumous praise. Fair enough. It's just that I have no interest in Batman as a character – plain & simple. As far as Ledger goes, his performance may be great, but I'd have been more interested in what he could have contributed to Terry Gilliam's next film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Sing in Kent Williams, Muse, and through him tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of filmmaking If I'm to spend a week's pay at the cinema, then I shall do so to watch a film about which I am excited: Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World. And so I sighed when I discovered that Katjusa Cisar of The Cap Times has penned a review. Last month I noted my disappointment with her take on Errol Morris' Standard Operating Procedure. In her review, Cisar complained that Morris didn't make the film she had wanted. Well, at least she is in good company as Michael Atkinson did the same thing in his own "review" for In These Times. Morris just isn't anti-Bush enough for Atkinson who needs every documentary relating to our venture in Iraq to be an explicitly anti-imperialist philippic. And so, with some trepidation, I read Ms. Cisar's review. It's pretty harmless for the most part but I have to wonder what it was about the film that inspired her to write the following: This all might seem like a crushing downer if it weren't for Herzog's obvious love for and faith in people, combined with a childlike wonder in the natural beauty of the world. I'll admit that I haven't seen the movie yet but I am inclined to think that an encounter with Herzog's previous works would do wonders for Ms. Cisar. A "childlike wonder in the natural beauty of the world"? Seriously? This is Werner Herzog we're talking about here, the same man who said, "I believe the common denominator of the Universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility and murder" and "Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness". While I wouldn't argue that Herzog doesn't find beauty in, say, any given landscape, what parts of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn, etc belie Herzog's view that nature is cruel and punishes men who would engage in the Sisyphean task of trying to control her? Ms. Cisar seems to believe that Encounters is a companion piece, of sorts, to March of the Penguins. For decades Herzog's films have been about people – people who are "Conquistadors of the Useless" and wrapped up in madness & chaos – and I am incredulous of the notion that he's now developed some kind of Ansel Adams-like desire to showcase how pretty nature is. I'm laying my money down on the side that says Herzog still views nature as chaotic and hostile. In addition, I would argue that Herzog is no stranger to asking his audiences to use nature as a mirror for themselves, to see at least some inner states reflected. For most, if not all of, his career, Werner Herzog has documented turbulence is one way or another and I find the idea that he has suddenly stopped to be very dubious. Ms. Cisar's review ends up coming off as the written equivalent of that mash-up trailer for The Shining which portrays the horror film as a heart-warming father-son tale.