My Best Fiend (Werner Herzog)

Herzog and Kinski.

"My Best Fiend" is Werner Herzog's love letter of a documentary film to his frequent collaborator Klaus Kinski. It also chronicles their turbulent relationship through strange anecdotes and firsthand stories on set. But aside from this notion of reliving Kinski's eccentricity and enigma in a very reflective fashion, this documentary film also serves as a chance for Herzog to analyze and interpret what has been going on inside Kinski's mind all throughout their troubled film collaborations that were often marred by the latter's lengthy diatribes and temperamental unpredictability.

     

Armed with an eloquence that's both strangely moving and profound, Herzog probes deep into his professional and personal relationship with Klaus Kinski not just to feed our minds with how things have occurred between them but also as a form of myth-making on his part. In the end, he just wants to eternalize Herzog not as a restless madman but as a serene friend; not as a difficult eccentric but someone that could have easily been him in a parallel lifetime. "That makes two of us!" Herzog blurted out when Kinski accused him of being a megalomaniac. This is not your ordinary actor-director relationship. This is mania matched with mania. This is artistic narcissism matched with mad ambition. This is a bomb waiting to explode. This is friendship at its most reluctant. This is their uneasy story.

     

Returning to the locations of their two most heralded collaborations, "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" and "Fitzcarraldo", and even a brief visit to the location where "Woyzeck'" was shot (with a reflective interview with star Eva Mattes), Herzog retraces the path of their insane acts of mutual artistry that's both appalling and fascinatingly magnetic. We are even granted a peek into some rare footages that shows Kinski both at his unstoppably worst (as he verbally assaults a production manager) and at his subtly caring best (as he tends to a wounded cameraman). We also see one of the extras in "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" whose head still bears the scar where Kinski has once hit him with a sword. He also shared a little anecdote involving Kinski, some 45 movie extras and a Winchester Rifle. Judging from Kinski's demeanor, you already have a clue of what has transpired.

     

But despite of these shenanigans, Werner Herzog, with his all too personal analysis of Kinski's psyche in relation to his own, is subtly elegiac about the whole thing. He is fully guilty of the fact that he once threatened Kinski with a gun just to prevent him from leaving the still unfinished production of "Fitzcarraldo". He's also quite repentant that, at one time, he once meditated in 'firebombing' Kinski's house.

     

With these admissions, Herzog knows that even though he claims that he is 'clinically sane' so to speak, Kinski is the only man that can bring out the madman in him. But at the same time, it's not only madness that they have extracted from each other; they have also brought out the best within the both of them. Their monolithic collaborative films can speak for themselves, and "My Best Fiend" may serve as the quiet immortalization of their friendship and film partnership that has made these pictures possible.

     

It's a shame that Kinski died too soon. It's quite interesting to hear his part of the story. But seeing him in the film, tranquil and all, with a pretty little butterfly flying around him is quite enough. In that footage, there's calm in his eyes and certain quietness to his soul; the ideal image that Herzog wants to remember Kinski with. Perhaps Herzog appreciates great irony.

FINAL RATING

Burden of Dreams (Les Blank)

A man with a 'mountainous' task. Literally.

Somewhere near the end of "Burden of Dreams", Herzog stated that he 'shouldn't make movies anymore' after the emotional, physical and intellectual drain that is "Fitzcarraldo". Of course, Herzog never stayed true to his words as he still kept on generating great films after great films since. But this documentary, capturing the legendary filmmaker's seemingly inexhaustible grasp to his ambitions in the middle of an Andean disillusionment, provocatively shows Herzog in near surrender (his film career) and without regard to the future.

But ironically, throughout the film, Werner Herzog shows an unusually calm demeanor. Looking at the things he is trying to fend off at the time, the likes of turbulent rapids, malicious rumors and political power struggles (not to mention the almost biblical task of moving a steamboat up a hill), a feeling of despair creeping within is not asking much. But he never snapped, at least not on the verge of suicide. Perhaps that's a consolation.

Herzog, known for his deeply tranquil voice (especially in his numerous films where he incorporates poetic narrations), is quite unsurprising in his display of passiveness in an environment that demands otherwise. Hell, he even got shot in the middle of an interview and could not care less. But what Les Blank's "Burden of Dreams" has captured brilliantly is his internal descent into a void of questions and uncertainties. In many sequences, Herzog navigates through the natives' camps, treacherous terrains and dangerous waters seemingly animated by a mission and even carries a smile once in a while. But along those moments, in the middle of each and every scene and triggered by Blank's questions, we hear him speak out.

It's not one of those pedestrian interviews where answers can be immediate, quick and solid. In these particular scenes, with his thick German accent, his words flow out, eloquent, vibrant, even frightening at times. It's a combination of a poet's uncommon inner articulacy, an everyday glib of a wisdom man and the dark, declarative enunciation of a doomsday prophet. And through that, he exposes his mind and soul. A mind that is pessimistic and unsure. A soul that is anxious and insecure. But a wholeness that is awfully determined and focused.

Yes, he can quite see the finish line, but he can't go into a full run. Budget, time constraints, the force of nature, you name it. He is a man of ambition and larger-than-life aspirations and will stop at nothing to put those into fruition. But he can see, in the distance, the looming presence of the inevitability of failure. And it's quite clear.

"Burden of Dreams", although about the agony of filmmaking, can also be seen as a documentary about the generalized significance of personal dreams. "Without dreams we would be cows in a field, and I don't want to live like that. I live my life or I end my life with this project." Herzog said. From that point on, the idea of finishing the film ceased to be merely just associated with the succeeding post-production. It is his ultimate self-affirming test as a filmmaker and as a dreamer. But on one side, it's also his sense of closure. A sigh of relief, if you can still just call it that.

Now, who would think that Herzog's harsh exploits in the wilderness and a psychological flirt between lunacy and megalomania would root out from his consummate, against all odds passion for his craft? Coppola maybe, with Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" on one hand and a gun on the other.

"...I love it. I love it very much. But I love it against my better judgment." Herzog said regarding on what he thinks of the Andean jungle. Maybe if you ask him regarding his devotion to finish "Fitzcarraldo", it will be the same answer. He just wanted it done, with his visions still intact, and more importantly, his sanity.

FINAL RATING

Johnny Got His Gun (Dalton Trumbo)

Memories.

I have watched enough 'pacifist' war films in the past, but I can safely say that "Johnny Got His Gun" is the most emotionally penetrating of the bunch that also extracts tenacious hope out of despair. What makes this film, masterfully directed by Oscar winner Dalton Trumbo (who won for penning the great romantic film "Roman Holiday"), very effective in what it tries to impart to its audience's sensibilities about the inhumanities of war is its pure focus and sheer devotion to its main character.

In other films dealing with the same underlying sentiments, the message and emotions are too widely distributed to a variety of characters that they sometimes appear to be too far-fetched, hence meager in overall effect. But in "Johnny Got His Gun", which beautifully reigns on the longings and memories of the titular character and wholly explores the landscapes of his entirety, Dalton Trumbo maximized the whole film and merged Johnny's personal struggles as an extreme amputee with his flinching anti-war sentiments. It ultimately came out as a spell-binding commentary not just pertaining to the sheer senselessness of conflicts, but also regarding the endurance of the soul.

Timothy Bottoms portrays the quadruple amputee Johnny with his trademark sad eyes and deadpan energy. Through his flashbacks and overlaps of fantasies and retained memories, he leads us through an unforgettably cerebral journey inside the psyche of an ordinary man who, as told to him even by his father (great performance by Jason Robards), is nothing 'unusual'. This is not a soldier whose life is filled with overachieving decorations or countless belligerence in the battlefield. He is a simple man with the same existential woes like other people usually have. But what separates him among others is his sense of 'hope'.

This film could have easily drifted into an unfathomable territory of pity and despair. But with Dalton Trumbo's attention to emotional balance, while enhanced by Jules Brenner's cinematography, "Johnny Got His Gun" surprisingly tiptoes between sets of spirited humor amidst its pessimistic undertones. But aside from all of these, the film is also quite articulate in its seemingly elegiac approach to religious 'faith'.

Eccentrically surrealist as it may seem to be, Donald Sutherland's 'Christ' is not shown as an omniscient observer but as a man of wisdom capable to immerse. He gambles with the soldiers, he fancies carpentry and he also signs checks. This can simply be a visual injection by Luis Bunuel who did an uncredited screenplay contribution to the film, but it is still subtly affecting in its approach.

"Johnny Got His Gun" fully suggests that in times of chaos, especially those created and prolonged by the follies of men, God does not merely watch from above but guides in close contact. But also as what the film's theme suggests, he is also imperfect in his own right.

There's a significant exchange in the film where the military doctor asks the priest to convince Johnny to put his faith in God. The priest, after seeing the poor condition of Johnny's physical predicament, tells the astute military doctor that he will not risk testing Johnny's faith against his (the doctor) stupidity. Johnny is a product of the military doctor's profession, after all. It's a conversation rooted out from situational desperation but it's quite obvious that the failure of the military doctor to reply to the priest's indirect accusation alludes to his acceptance of the generalized mistakes created by his occupation.

The film, although has raised some potent promises regarding the condition of men of duty like Johnny, is a bleak observation of casualties and the secretive tendencies of 'war' and its officials. And as if out of nowhere, it is evenly contrasted with the demonstrativeness of a 'freak show' on a traveling carnival. The latter may exploit, but it does not, in any way, take lives so relentlessly as the first.

Many films have shown emotional desensitization in the middle of violence and carnage. But "Johnny Got His Gun" does not put itself along those lines that may just evoke mindless, machismo-filled indifference; the film is, after all has been said, a liberating study of the maddening physical limitations of a man nowhere to retreat but his collective dreams and his conscious mind. It tells of the imminence of hopelessness yet it struggles for life. Dalton Trumbo and Johnny. They prefer the 'carnival' more.

FINAL RATING