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"Herakles" is a short insight into the Greek myth about Herakles. We observe hero while training. It is a silent movie and the only words are the subtitles, that are only questions whether Herakles will defeat someone (they are all connected with the myth).

What can be interesting is that Herakles is shown only physically, actually there is not much time to see his face and his surrounding is rather murky and dark. The questions are asked while Herkles is preparing as if there were some doubts. In the myth Herakles is rather a pure hero, here he gets a quality of uncertainty. He is shown as a motivated and strong, but rather human, however by that I do not mean that Herzog wants to attribute humanity to him. A hero is a man and a god, therefore it would be pointless.

I must admit that I am very careful while rendering Herzog's film. You cannot really say at what he was aiming. It is probably film done in result of experimenting with filming (it is his first film). Probably Herzog visualized his loose interpretation or rather his attitude towards Herakles. This film is not spectacular or meaningful, but is a gracious creation of imagination. The best thing you can to do is to enjoy it for yourself.

"Im Himmel ist die Hölle los" is a film trying to be sarcastic and bright. It has however everything what a bad film has - poor cast, amateurish director, unskilled editor and mediocre scenario.

Mimi Schrillmann (Billie Zöckler) is in love with a TV host Willi Wunder (Dirk Bach). She is young, naive and psychedelic. He is middle-aged, hooked and unavailable. They are both fat and ugly.

She lives in a small town in Germany and her life consists of going to school where nobody likes her, eating and getting bored in front of TV. She has no father (I wonder if it has any deeper meaning...), her mother (Barbara Valentin) has an affair with their neighbor (Harry Baer). He has a manlike wife (Walter Bockmayer) and a either normally stupid or being deliberately obtuse daughter Elke (Cleo Kretschmer), who is also in love with Willy Wunder, like all the people in the world.

Willi Wunder has a kitsch TV-program and a pretty assistant Vanessa played by Beate Hasenau (it's funny-she's the only pretty person in the film). His assistant (Ralph Morgenstern) ensures him drugs and deals with his problems.

I must say that for the first twenty minutes happens nothing, but it seems to be nicely psychedelic (because of Mimmi and Willy Wunder Show). But the film gets duller. Even if the deliberately kitsch scenes make you laugh they do it only for few minutes. Showed constantly are getting tiring.

Willy Wunder comes to Mimmi's time to do his show there. Because of Vanessa's big demands Willy (or rather his assistant) "fires" her. Now he is looking for a new one and Mimmi is trying to get this job.

I watched this film because of the title actually. And I am disappointed. The characters are as strange as it is possible, probably because the writer had no idea how to build a good plot. This film is a big mess actually. To make something ironic it must be at first bright and intelligent, not over-original. "Im Himmel ist die Hölle los" pretends to be sarcastic and mock at TV-society. Well, the director failed. And a beautiful title is wasted.