Written and Directed by Werner Herzog
Featuring Werner Herzog, Bruce Chatwin and Karin Eberhard
Running time: 1 hour and 37 minutes

by Ian Hrabe

One of the more curious cinematic developments from the last twenty years or so has been watching Werner Herzog transform from one of our most gifted narrative storytellers to one of our most gifted documentarians. As his prowess as a feature filmmaker has waned--with 2006’s Rescue Dawn being his last objectively great film, 2009’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans being a more subjective bit of business that this critic enjoys but would never in is right mind recommend to an unsuspecting party without serious vetting--his documentaries are consistently phenomenal. Since Herzog’s 2005 documentary breakout hit Grizzly Man, he has given us Encounters at the End of the World, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Happy People: A Year on the Taiga, Into the Abyss, and Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World. Each subject is more different than the last, but all of them explore humanity at the fringes.