This is a 15-minute black-and-white short film fake documentary by legendary German director Werner Herzog. I have to say I am a great fan of him, but I don't get what he was doing here. I am fairly certain these 15 minutes would be completely unknown by now if it wasn't for the big name associated with them. We hear a man with the most disturbing giggle talk about war while we see a group of soldiers reenacting war action in a military castle. Pretty ridiculous. In one scene they punch each other with wiping clothes. It all looks very amateurish and there wasn't great wisdom either to what the man told. Or more harshly put, it is just random rambling. By the way, the narrator here is not Herzog. Usually he narrates his own movie, but not this time. Quite a shame, would have been interesting to hear his voice in his early 20s. I really love listening to him. While I am already talking about the audio, it can be added that the music in here was repetitive and uncreative. All in all, really a failure of a movie and most likely Herzog worst. But I can forgive him as he was very young when he made this and it was only his third work as a director. He was clearly looking for his path as a director and not much later he found it and made some really memorable films.
The above is my original review from 2015 and I decided to give this one another watch in 2023 now that the film is over 55 years old already. Just some quick thoughts that came to mind this time: I still stay with my lowest rating here and did not see any appeal in this. I must still say that I despised the narrator and what he had to say not as much anymore as I did when I watched this quarter of an hour back then. I still hoped he would not return after his first turn when there is a break before he picks up again on the words Herzog wrote for him. In addition, I would say that another thing that brought the film down this time was the inclusion of the mouse and what the soldiers or "soldiers" did with or rather to it there in one scene, which surely could not have been staged with a prop. As for the quartet of actors, with the exception of one they never worked on another Herzog film and also not on another film by anybody else apparently. You can read the four names in the end if you pay close enough attention. The exception is Wolfgang von Ungern-Sternberg, who was part of three more Herzog films (actually full feature films) in the decade after this one here and also worked on other projects in front of the camera. With Herzog not only in front of the camera. For Herzog himself, this was not his first, but his third (short) film effort as a writer and director. Maybe it is interesting if you consider Herzog's own past as a boy, toddler pretty much during World War II, although it is probably a bit far-fetched to say this film was inspired by his own past. This film got made slightly over two decades after World War II. However, I just cannot give it anything other than a drastic thumbs-down and negative recommendation. Sure you hear some wisdoms while watching, but even those are as random as the action in front of the camera. Like why are they suddenly turning against one of their own out of nowhere (betrayal? A spy?) and yet they are united again in the end as if nothing happened? Nothing here makes sense and the potential explanation that war is not about sense is not good enough to justify the existence of this film. It was so short and still dragged quite a bit. I highly suggest you skip it. It's probably a good thing that it is really difficult to find these days anyway.
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