Werner Herzog documents the Kuwaiti oil fires during the Gulf War. That is the simple explanation not given during the film or the movie's narration, and does not inform the composition of the work. Rather, here is an apocalyptic tale of a city divided, destroyed, and replaced by raging infernos, man-made volcanoes, plains turned to deserts and forests subsumed by lakes of oil. The movie itself is very elemental and often contrasts opposing forces, water and fire, oil and sky. Herzog adds classical music for poetic effect, and shows characters, all of whom have lost their voices.
The first half is Apocalypse realized, complete with Biblical notation and everything. The landscape is destroyed, long helicopter shots show nothing but wasteland. The second half is more curious, and ultimately more disturbing. For the majority of the second half you watch as people put out the fires, dig through the oil, and rebuild, reintroducing technology and solidity and community to the landscape. Then, less you read a hopeful message into this feature, those same workers reignite the fire. No real motivation is explained or described, except that the workers themselves subsist off of continuing the destruction.
Herzog has always shown a propensity to bringing the camera to the edges of survival and human condition, and even the technical aspects of bringing a film camera so close to raging infernos and spraying oil wells has to be taken into account. He is fearless for his craft, his equipment, and his life, and it is because he imbues all of his cinema completely with his soul.
--PolarisDiB
The first half is Apocalypse realized, complete with Biblical notation and everything. The landscape is destroyed, long helicopter shots show nothing but wasteland. The second half is more curious, and ultimately more disturbing. For the majority of the second half you watch as people put out the fires, dig through the oil, and rebuild, reintroducing technology and solidity and community to the landscape. Then, less you read a hopeful message into this feature, those same workers reignite the fire. No real motivation is explained or described, except that the workers themselves subsist off of continuing the destruction.
Herzog has always shown a propensity to bringing the camera to the edges of survival and human condition, and even the technical aspects of bringing a film camera so close to raging infernos and spraying oil wells has to be taken into account. He is fearless for his craft, his equipment, and his life, and it is because he imbues all of his cinema completely with his soul.
--PolarisDiB