I wasn't planning on doing the next part of this series immediately after the first one, but it appears I'm busy for the next few days and so sitting down for a session might be difficult. Since I enjoyed writing Part One so much I found the prospect of not returning to my blog so soon quite unappealing so, even though I felt a bit drained, at 2000 last night I sat down and cracked on with more Herzog.
LAST WORDS
I'm going to tell you what I thought this short film was about before I look up on the internet what it actually was about and we can see how right or wrong I was.
It's a strange one this one as very little of it makes sense. It's in the same vain as Fata Morgana in that it has images and sounds but they don't seem entirely connected. There's s subject but it's not clearly defined and what we're hearing in the form of dialogue doesn't necessarily relate to that subject. Or is it?
My first impression was that I was watching outtakes from a documentary. Set in Crete we see a local barman, policemen and others repeating lines of dialogue about a disturbed individual. They repeat their lines like the film crew's sound person has asked them to just talk while they check their levels. I can't think of any other reason for it. So Herzog decided to make a short film using these outtakes.
It seems at first they're all talking about a local man who refuses to talk but plays live music in a local bar. He even sings. But he won't talk. Then they seem to be discussing a leper colony and the last person to leave the island, who apparently jumped off the cliff into the see and a church was built next to his last footprint. Then I think there's a story about someone found in an abandoned town or something. I wasn't sure if it was the leper colony or not.
So there seems to be three separate stories being told by these local men in this bizarre, repetitive fashion.
Right, let's look up what it was really about...
Hang on.
Ah, ok, I was wrong - they're all talking about the same person. I genuinely believed the people being interviewed were telling three different stories: one recent, one from recent history and one from ancient history. But there you go.
That's just how weird Last Words is.
I wasn't even sure the man they were talking about appeared on screen but apparently he's the guy with the most dialogue even though he refuses to speak. I thought the point of the film was that we have all these people talking about some disturbed individual(s) even though they, themselves, seem disturbed. I guess you could say it still has that vibe.
I'd definitely file this under "experimental" like Fata Morgana.
Last Words is strange, amusing but nicely shot with softer black and white cinematography than yesterday's short, The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz, but I wonder if that's more to do with the contrasting climates that both films were shot in. The footage from the old leper colony is very evocate and I was hooked by just trying to untangle what everyone was talking about.
Odd.
AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD
So it turns out I've been pronouncing "Aguirre" wrong for years. I thought it rhymed with "attire" but apparently it rhymes with "Akira".
Don't I feel daft!
Anyway, this was the one I was most looking forward to as I do like a gritty, realistic historical drama and this promised to be right up my alley.
It certainly delivered on my expectations of being filled with lush South American countryside and brutal living conditions but I was expecting more steady handed cinematography and carefully framed shots, however this feels more like a modern docu-soap with narration by one of the characters instead of cutaways to talking head interviews.
It's interesting how much this film works against the conventions of movie storytelling as there's barely an arc to what's happening, which makes it feel more like a document than a fictional story. Literally nothing good happens for ninety minutes and the titular Aguirre is as unpleasant as they come from start to finish. He descends into madness but not from being a nice guy - he's a bastard from the get go.
But he's not even the main character, which surprised me. It's more of an ensemble. The closest film reference I can make is an obvious one, which is Apocalypse Now. A bunch of people are on a boat heading down a river not quite knowing what they'll find when they get to their destination - if their destination even exists. They get attacked by the locals and end up going a bit crazy.
Actually, you could almost say Apocalypse Now is a spiritual sequel to this and that Aguirre is very much a Colonel Kurtz figure who Willard is eventually sent to find.
I wasn't sure which language to play the film in. When I got to the DVDs menu it offered the German and English version. Usually the choices aren't so explicitly laid out so I checked the internet and there seems to be some disagreement about which is the one you should watch.
I watched it in German for the first half and then changed it to English, but the English dubbing was so bad (not the quality or synchronisation but the actual acting) that I had to turn it back, which turned out to be the right idea as there seemed to be some inconsistencies with the two tracks which always makes me a bit mistrustful of translations.
When a character gets shot by the indigenous people he declares, in the German version, "The long bows are back in fashion!", but in the English dub he says "I thought it'd hurt more!". Or something to that effect.
Two completely different lines and the first one was a little smarter.
Why did they change it? Who knows, but even though the English dub would have been easier for me to watch I felt more at ease reading the subtitles.
So I think I've said all there is to be said about Aguirre, the Wrath of God really. It's a simple film with a very linear series of events. The feeling of isolation is very intoxicating and you do wonder about the sanity of anyone who would go on such an expedition. Be it in the name of a deity or just for fun, being alone in the wilderness is terrifying and a real strain on your emotions.
I have a theory about that actually. Because we all live in such tidy, straight lined abodes with right angles and order, when we get out into the wilderness the primal animal in us begins to take over. This can be quite liberating but it can also be quite disturbing if you're not used to it.
I'm not sure whether to recommend Aguirre or not. Maybe as an example of how easy most film productions look, as this one looks like it was a living nightmare to shoot. But with the lack of any likeable characters and a standard story arc it's a tough watch.
That last paragraph doesn't make me sound very good, I admit. I should declare that it's a masterpiece of avant garde cinema or something, but it's an ugly film about ugly people doing ugly things for ugly reasons, but I think ugly is what Herzog was going for.
THE LAND OF SILENCE AND DARKNESS
Much like Handicapped Future which dealt with the isolation of a group of physically disabled children, The Land of Silence and Darkness introduces us to the deaf-blind community, who have even bigger hurdles to overcome in integrating into society.
Whereas Handicapped Future felt positive in presenting what adaptations and possibilities are on offer for the physically disabled, The Land of Silence and Darkness is a little more bleak because we know that, no matter how integrated the deaf-blind become, they will always feel alone.
And this isn't necessarily my interpretation, we are told by the subjects themselves how isolated they feel. We hear poetry readings and personal accounts that made me still with grief.
I suffer from Retinitus Pigmentosa and have spent a lot of time amongst the blind community and have experienced many varying degrees of coping, but as I mentioned in Part One when discussing Handicapped Future it's not necessarily external factors that affect a persons' independence but the inclinations of their personality. Some people I've met with less eyesight than me have been able to accomplish practical tasks that I couldn't, not just because of my visual impairment but because of my confidence and lack of technical ability.
The people we see in The Land of Silence and Darkness show similar differences in ability. Some are confident and pro-active in developing relations with not only the deaf-blind community but also the community at large, but some are so introverted and dependant that the only place that will accept them is a hospital for the mentally ill.
The style of Herzog's film is not just to inform us, which it does, but also to show us. Often scenes are just the camera following the deaf-blind subjects around a room or an outdoor space and watching how they interact with their environment and other people. It's these quieter moments that tell us the most about their experience. The last scene where a very dependant deaf-blind gentleman explores a tree with his hands as he waits for his mother to stop talking to other people is very revealing and fascinating.
I remember meeting a deaf-blind boy when I was studying administration at The Royal Nation College for the Blind in 1999/2000 (I returned in 2011) and, while I'm sure my conduct was appropriate and I did the best I could to make conversation, my overriding memory is my thinking "what do I say to him?" I feel bad about this but, well, I know they were just internal thoughts and, like I said, I did communicate very well through his interpreter, but even for someone who has a sensory impairment meeting someone who is deaf-blind can be a challenging experience.
Plus, regardless of the situation, I'm just not very good at small talk.
Watching this film made me want to go back and slap Aguirre and his religious fanatics for making their own lives and the lives of others so unnecessarily hard. The Land of Silence and Darkness will make you appreciate what abilities and senses you have, even if they happen to be limited.
A sad, gripping and thought provoking work.
NEXT UP: PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FANATICS, THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER and THE GREAT ECSTASY OF WOODCARVER STEINER
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