Horst_In_Translation Review of Lessons of Darkness

Lessons of Darkness (1992 TV Movie)

Herzog elaborates on the burning oil fields

[6/10 · 31 July 2016]

"Lektionen in Finsternis" or "Lessons of Darkness" is a 54-minute live action documentary from 1992. The writer and director is Werner Herzog and we also get to hear his great voice on several occasions narrating stories about the contents of this film, especially early on in here. The topic here are the burning Kuwaitian oil fields in the Middle East. I personally must say that it is a subject I knew about, but never had much interest in. Herzog changed this, but only slightly. It was interesting to watch this documentary, but it is still nothing that I would do research on myself. There is another documentary from the same year on this subject which is narrated by Rip Torn, considerably short and also not as known as Herzog's work. And yet that other one managed to score an Oscar nomination. I also agree with these who say Herzog's work is better. Maybe the reason is that Herzog did not really try to elaborate on the political facts and context, but just shows us a depiction of video recordings that describe the state of Kuwait, its people and the brave men trying to extinguish the fires. I remember especially one scene from the very end when people set an oil fountain on fire and Herzog asks if it is not possible anymore to live without the burning oil for these people. This scene could have come off as fairly pretentious when other filmmakers had made it similarly, but Herzog somehow gets away with it and it is even one of the best moments of this fairly short full feature documentary. I recommend the watch here and this film keeps up my opinion that Herzog can always be relied on. i also felt sometimes that this reminded me occasionally of Herzog's "Fata Morgana", only that it has more political context and more oil and fire and less Leonard Cohen and Lotte Eisner, even if I still like "Fata Morgana" more. The tone and atmosphere felt fairly similar. Go see both of these. You will hopefully not regret it.