The Wild Blue Yonder

Colour, 35 mm
Germany, United Kingdom, France, 2005, 81 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

The label “science fiction fantasy” well describes Werner Herzog’s traditionally distinctive approach to the documentary genre. As in his feature films, here he chiefly profiles visionary outcasts from the “normal” world, and depicts “exotic” but, in terms of the individual and humankind, indifferent natural environments. In a documentary-feature hybrid, this film follows an extraterrestrial from the Andromeda system (Brad Dourif) who tells the story of his kind, seeking a new home on Earth after abandoning their dying native planet. The purely sci-fi plot is illustrated with archive news reels, interviews with leading mathematicians, reports from the crew of the space shuttle STS-34 and shots taken beneath the Arctic ice layers. The audience is confronted with a colourful mosaic of images, coming together to form surprisingly fresh and rare film poetry, complemented with a remarkable sound track from Ernst Reijseger.

About the director

Werner Herzog (b. 1942, Munich) began as a documentary filmmaker. He won a Silver Bear at the Berlin IFF for his feature debut Signs of Life (Lebenszeichen, 1967). His story of the foundling Caspar Hauser Every Man for Himself and God Against All (Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle, 1974) brought him the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes IFF, where he later also won Best Director for his “opera” drama Fitzcarraldo (1982). His most famous films include the feature dramas Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes, 1972), Stroszek (1977), the horror Nosferatu (Nosferatu – Phantom der Nacht, 1979), Cobra Verde (1987) and the documentaries Ten Thousand Years Older, from the collection of film stories Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002), and Grizzly Man (2005).