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Where 2001: A Space Odyssey applied sci-fi idiom to Old and New Testaments, Werner Herzog in this staggering fugue seizes the Popol Vuh to shape the extraterrestrial eye. "Creation" is the opening panel, the screen is a Rothko ("Only the skies were there") filled with sand, carcasses (a rusty jeep, a WWII bomber, a decomposing dromedary), vast expanses blasted orange and blue. The Saharan floor photographed in endless lateral scans might be another galaxy, its dunes like a behemoth shifting its weight to earfuls of Mozart and Couperin. Power plants in the distance are the first intimations of human intrusion, Lotte Eisner is the raspy high priestess on the soundtrack: "They came to the Mighty and to Qucumatz and considered light and life: 'In what manner shall life be sown, and how shall light shine?'" The camera gazes down from a mountaintop for a gorgeous vista, though Herzog's most valuable work is done ground-level and up close. The cinéaste takes over voiceover duties for "Paradise" ("In Paradise, roasted pigeons fly right into your mouth... In Paradise, Man is born dead"), arranges local boys in pugnacious poses, and runs into a fellow explorer marveling through aviator glasses at a lizard. "I forget to pray for the angels," warbles Leonard Cohen, "and then the angels forget to pray for us." "The Golden Age" cuts from the spaciousness outside to a drab shoebox of a ballroom stage for a Duane Hanson tableau, a snapshot of an unsmiling tourist couple on drums, piano and fuzzy microphone, "Man and Wife in harmony." Debris in the desert, figures as odd and varied as the landscapes, great turtles and the asses in scuba gear who chase them. Shantytown kids at play, homes carved into the sides of mountains, airplanes landing like firebirds, the horizon made to dance by the heat—mirages and, to a dedicated seeker like Herzog, self-sufficient rewards. Cinematography by Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein.
--- Fernando F. Croce |