“Wings of Hope” (2000)
A little-seen TV documentary from 2000, “Wings of Hope,” deserves just as much attention as any other Werner Herzog documentary and then some. Perpetually drawn to the call of the Amazonian jungle it seems, ‘Hope’ once more finds Herzog in the depths of the South American rain forest to document and re-tell an amazing and harrowing story of survival. This time it’s recounting the tale of German woman Juliane Köpcke, the sole survivor of Peruvian flight LANSA Flight 508 that crashed in the amazon in 1971. Like ‘Dieter,’ Herzog takes Köpcke back to the jungles and the very spot where the plane crashed—they even find remnants of the aircraft—and she relives, at least in her mind, her painful ordeal. Traveling ten days on foot without food or water, and with maggots living and festering within her cuts, Köpcke eventually came across a river that took her to three men who rescued her. Admittedly, it’s very similar in tone to ‘Dieter,’ but had you not seen the earlier film first you might be just as enthralled and in awe by the end. Herzog seems to bend truths here and there, subtly soundtracked to transcendent pieces of music, but when they result in so many moments so damn profound and beautiful, its hard to argue with his techniques. [B+]
“Invincible” (2001)
The facts don’t matter so much to Werner Herzog, who wisely pursues the innate truths of our humanity through celluloid instead, even when dealing with fairly concrete stories. An example of this is the re-invention of the “Jewish Samson,” Zishe Breitbart, not as a significant cultural icon of the 1920s but instead a significant player in the growing tensions between the Jewish population and the Nazi Party, which required bumping the timeline of Breitbart’s death closer to the Holocaust for this fictional retelling. It might seem a fairly superficial change, but what this does is illuminate both Herzog’s notion that the towering Polish strongman was a walking piece of art, and that the Nazis were killing thousands but also destroying ideas. The terrific, unjustly neglected “Invincible” features several digressions, including constant detours into the life of Jewish cabaret owner Hanussen (an understated Tim Roth), and a brief focus on the local sea life that catches Breitbart’s fancy, and which provides a recognizably Herzogian conclusion: like these aquatic creatures, he seems to argue, we are unable to control our fate. [A-]
“Wheel of Time” (2003)
To observe the wild man of the international film scene turn in such a gentle and meditative examination of some of the most arcane and deeply pacifist rituals of the Buddhist religion feels a little like watching a ship battered by years on rough seas come in to port: oddly restful and comforting. Gaining unprecedented access to some never-before-filmed scenes as the Dalai Lama, his monks and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims congregate for a festival of enlightenment, Herzog’s fascination with his subjects, his awe at their self-sacrifice and his admiration for their philosophy is almost palpable. Complemented by breathtaking photography of crowds swarming over the Tibetan landscape, and tiny moments of sand grains dropping one by one to form the intricate mandala at the film’s heart, Herzog’s narration is by turns wry and deeply, profoundly absorbed, making him the perfect outsider through whose eyes to see these truly exotic and uncanny spiritual sights. It may not be the most urgent of Herzog’s documentaries, but it is among his most mesmerizing. [B+]
“The White Diamond” (2004)
Werner Herzog’s most dangerous films (like, man-confronting-a-bear dangerous, or man-confronting-Nic–Cage dangerous) tend to gather the biggest crowds, but really, it’s Herzog’s more introspective queries on man’s complicated relationship with nature that linger in our consciousness longest. His endearing and subtlety strange arctic travelogue, “Encounters at the End of the World,” is one good example, and “The White Diamond,” an intoxicatingly gorgeous journey through the rainforest of Guyana by way of a Jungle Airship, might be the best of his docs in the ’00s. It pairs its National Geographic-ready wildlife profile with an achingly personal character study; in this case, Herzog’s madman fighting the odds is Dr. Graham Dorrington, an aviation engineer who embarks on a trip to Guyana’s Kaieteur Falls to study the rainforest’s canopy. In Dorrington’s ambition (modest compared to other Herzog protags), the filmmaker evokes his classic theme of man’s struggle to achieve symbiosis with nature. But there’s a sorrowful lilt (evidenced in the lingering memory of a passed-away friend) that’s somewhat rare in Herzog’s oeuvre. His cinematography, too, is imbued with a shimmering beauty appropriate for this often overlooked gem in the canon of one of our most versatile, singular filmmakers. [A]
“Grizzly Man” (2005)
A more recent success, Werner Herzog’s perverse, funny, deeply-touching documentary is about Timothy Treadwell, a granola-eating, press-loving nature freak who wants to be absorbed, “Jungle Book“-style, into a family of grizzly bears. While this could be the set up for some bizarre but heartwarming, nature doc, “Grizzly Man” is really a whacked-out tragedy delineating the utter hubris and naivety of Treadwell’s desire: he may adore nature and the grizzly bear, but that is no guarantee that either loves him back. With Werner Herzog’s liberal narration, the movie becomes less about a man consumed with a noble pursuit, but more a psychological profile of a man so unwell he would kill himself (and someone he loved) through a misguided sense of purpose. In this context, a brief scene with David Letterman interviewing Treadwell and joking that one day he’ll be eaten by a bear becomes an ironic prophecy, and the story overall, while true, feels like it sprang directly from Herzog’s brain. [A-]