Reviews

My first introduction to Herzog. Probably not the best option, but it's an easy starter lesson.

I didn't really notice any specific stylistic traits, but there's a lot of thematic stuff to work with. I really dug how he stuck as close to history as he could, forgoing cliché and traditional arcs in favour of a more realistic approach. This makes the story seem almost symmetrical; Dengler gradually gains more human contact until he is fully immersed in the POW camp, and then he gradually loses these contacts until he is, once again, alone. Of course, the film is bookended by scenes of him in the military, but the contrast between these moments is startling, specifically in the physical figure of Dengler, with his extreme weight loss and unhealthy appearance. The disparity of these scenes is key to this idea of a naturalist narrative.

I also liked how there wasn't one specific conflict, with a build-up, climax, and resolution, but a series of smaller conflicts, both internal and external. Herzog deals with traditional hierarchies of man vs. nature, man vs. man, and man vs. himself, never emphasizing one over the other, giving each of them their time in the sun.

However, I didn't love it. I felt the film could have been a lot stronger technically, or at least more in line with the themes it dealt with. The 'fade to black' was overused to a ridiculous degree, and it made the film seem more episodic than continuous, at odds with the ultra-realism of the story. There was also no real continuity among the cinematographic choices, switching from panoramic pans to gritty hand-held work to subjective perspective shots without much reason for it. Perhaps this is a trademark of Herzog; I'd have to watch more films of his.

I certainly enjoyed it, and it's a solid film overall, but something just felt off about it. It felt almost like Herzog was dampening his style for Hollywood, though I have no real clue what his style is. Still, it's a 'good' film, as weak as that sounds.

For about forty minutes of this film, I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. Nothing was really going on, the characters were ambling about, talking in circles, and there was no semblance of a plot developing. Despite my best intentions (and everything I've learned about cinema), I lost interest.

However, once the oil well disaster occurs, sparking the plot, I was hooked. It's such a contrived and nonsensical story (was there really such an urgent need for the nitroglycerin that the oil company was willing to risk it all blowing up?) but it's pulled off so expertly and thrillingly that the film thrives because of it, not in spite of it. Every trivial problem is life-threatening, every moment is potentially deadly, each normally banal act becomes increasingly important and serious. The sense of doom developed is palpable, and it's entirely because of the plot.

Coupled with that sense of doom is a terrific atmosphere of fatalism. It lingers just under the surface throughout the film, finally bursting forward when the first truck explodes and Jo becomes injured in the bog. That great final conversation between him and Mario, in which he expresses his desire to survive, despite taking the high-risk, low-reward job, is a perfect summation of the film's themes; Mario's subsequent collapse in front of the exploding oil well is one of the great shots in all of cinema (reminding me strongly of There Will Be Blood) and superbly symbolizes the dread and desperation that he has undergone. That final twist is just icing on the cake.

That first act hurts it, but this is a nearly perfect thriller.

The presence of two directors is quite noticeable, as is the lack of Kubrickian influence on the script, as it's almost like a tale of two movies. There's the dark, depressing, realistic Kubrick stuff (the scene right before the first fight to the death, where the gladiators hear the nobles discussing trivial matters, is right out of Paths of Glory), and then there's the sappy, melodramatic, happy Hollywood stuff (those terrible montages of life in the slave camp). Luckily Kubrick wins out (for the most part) and the end is suitably dismal.

As with Paths of Glory, there's a lot of ideas thrown about dealing with the distinction between the higher and lower classes, and that couldn't be more obvious than with the political maneuvering of Crassus and Gracchus nearly outweighing the noble plight of Spartacus. Kubrick also likes three-way conflicts (Jack/Danny/the Overlook in The Shining, US/Russia/Ripper in Dr. Strangelove) and Spartacus and Gracchus uniting (in a way) to beat their common enemy is symptomatic of that. That stuff, along with that horribly depressing end with all the slaves crucified along the road, is vintage Kubrick.

Unfortunately there's all that cheesy Hollywood stuff about hope and glory and freedom that really feels at odds with the realistic epic that the rest of the film is trying to put forth. The ill-fated romance, Spartacus' many speeches, indeed the entire epic battle all fall in line with this. Of course, we also get that great "I'm Spartacus!" scene, so maybe it's not all bad.

The sexual innuendo and political drama which lie just under the surface are quite refreshing, and really distinguish this film from, say, Ben-Hur. It seems to me to be an epic more concerned with art than financial success, at least for the most part, and I really dug that. It's not perfect, but it's not mediocre like so many epics of the time, either.

Definite recommend, especially for Ben-Hur fans so they can learn what life is really like.

I really likes how it draws the viewer in with its promise of sci-fi spectacle and ideas, but then shifts gears and becomes something else entirely. I'd argue that it's not really science fiction at all, it just uses it as a base for its larger purpose. At its heart, it's really a psychological drama, and though I usually prefer sci-fi, I really dug the ideas and themes it got going through its human relationship. I read that Tarkovsky didn't like 2001 because it was cold and distant, and so set out to make this film differently, but I didn't really view it as the 'anti-2001'. It's an entirely different type of beast entirely.

It's a film first and foremost about memory, and in that regard it's a lot more similar to something like La Jetée in the sci-fi realm. From the opening scenes where Kris is gazing sadly into a pond, the film is almost completely concerned with the effects that lost loves and past memories have upon us. When Kris first encounters his deceased wife in the space station, he doesn't know how to deal with it at first, and he sends her away in a rocket. When he encounters her again, he becomes afraid to lose her again, and thus when she risks death to be near him (by busting through a door), he vows not to leave her side again, foregoing his mission to stay with her. It's almost as if he falls in love again, and it's interesting to see it happen.

Even more intriguing, though, is the actual character of the wife, Hari. Though she is nothing more than a manifestation of Kris' thoughts at first (she can not even exist without him there, as evidenced by her door-busting antics), the way she evolves into a real human being by the end of the film is probably the most interesting part of this film. It brings up all these ideas of what it means to be human and where our memories come from, and this, in my opinion, is a lot more compelling than Kris' story. When Hari, the manifestation, eventually decides to commit suicide by drinking liquid oxygen (only to return to life, moments later, in a terrifying and disturbing sequence), it conjures up even more questions. Is the manifestation doomed to follow the path of the original, who also died by her hand? Perhaps no shot is as provocative as the final one, though. Just as we've thought that Kris has returned home to reconcile with his father, the camera pulls back to reveal that he is, in fact, on one of the island that has formed on the surface of Solaris' ocean. So many questions abound. Does Kris know he's on Solaris? Why is he there? Is he, really, or is the planet manifesting him as well? It's one of the more baffling and affecting final shots in cinema (right up there with 2001 and Planet of the Apes, as far as sci-fi goes), and it just feels like the perfect ending. The film ends where it began, at Kris' father's home, but it's not the same place at all. The journey of the story is at once linear and circular.

I don't feel like I got everything on just one viewing, so I'll definitely be watching it again. It certainly doesn't feel like a masterpiece - certain scenes feel strange and out-of-place - but when viewed as a whole, I don't know what else you can call it. It's one of the greatest films I've seen, let alone in sci-fi, and I truly look forward to visiting it again someday.