What is it about middle aged white mean and their sudden love of Orientalism (or jazz, for that matter)? Is it a midlife crisis? This thought came to me watching Werner Herzog's 2003 documentary Wheel Of Time. The best thing I can say of the film is that it would make for a solid PBS film by a typical documentary director, but coming from a master of cinema, like Herzog, it's a profound disappointment. Why? There simply is nothing more to this film than Herzog filming the mundane goings on at a trio of Buddhist festivals in 2002, and acting as if peasants trekking about a mountain (Mount Kailash in Tibet), monks painting mandalas with colored sand, and white Austrians rapt with Orientalism, were supposed to lend some deep insight into the cosmic goings on. At least, that is what can be taken from Herzog's narration of the film.
Too often the film is hermetic; its rituals are regarded, but no explanation is proffered, not from an anthropological nor narrative perspective. The acts of prostration, as example, become mere sideshow carny acts to the watcher of this film, and never impart any sense of admiration for the devotees, because they are unreal, in many ways, never fully part of the vital reality of the film. Similarly, we see children in monk robes, yet Herzog never queries how such children really feel about being drafted into their family's business, something I once asked a young Buddhist monk. All in all, Wheel Of Time is a solid film, fairly straight forward, and nothing remotely approaching his earlier, greater films. Perhaps the most telling thing is that Werner Herzog made a merely solid film; that's how damned good a film craftsman he is. No, I'm wrong; even worse than making a solid film is the fact that the faux reverential Herzog mad a non-Herzogian film. Let's just hope Herzog is never smitten with John Coltrane nor Charlie Parker. That would not be merely solid, but brutally painful. Goodbye, Dalai!
Too often the film is hermetic; its rituals are regarded, but no explanation is proffered, not from an anthropological nor narrative perspective. The acts of prostration, as example, become mere sideshow carny acts to the watcher of this film, and never impart any sense of admiration for the devotees, because they are unreal, in many ways, never fully part of the vital reality of the film. Similarly, we see children in monk robes, yet Herzog never queries how such children really feel about being drafted into their family's business, something I once asked a young Buddhist monk. All in all, Wheel Of Time is a solid film, fairly straight forward, and nothing remotely approaching his earlier, greater films. Perhaps the most telling thing is that Werner Herzog made a merely solid film; that's how damned good a film craftsman he is. No, I'm wrong; even worse than making a solid film is the fact that the faux reverential Herzog mad a non-Herzogian film. Let's just hope Herzog is never smitten with John Coltrane nor Charlie Parker. That would not be merely solid, but brutally painful. Goodbye, Dalai!