Lo and Behold - Internet: il futuro è oggi

I was lucky to see this at Sundance with one of the best audiences.

Somehow, even after Werner's extensive resume, this was his most immersive and informative documentary yet.

The film doesn't just touch on the basic history and fundamentals of the Internet, but provides such a deep understanding of its past, present, and future. It dives into the wonders of what is possible while carefully reminding us about its dangers, all while Werner gives a very comedic voice-over.

It's a shame that Roger Ebert isn't around to view this film. I know he would've been proud of his friend for creating such an accomplishment in documentary filmmaking.

Herzog is a character, a clown, and it's hard not to love him. The moments where he peeks out (voice only) in this film are the absolute highlights. But it's important to remember with Herzog's films that they are often more than just documentaries, and I don't believe for a second that Herzog feels any obligation to present anything factual. He's interested in concept and perspectives, but not necessarily a photo realistic portrayal of the world. This is why I would argue that Herzog's films are more essays than documentaries. As long as you remember this, you will have a good time watching this movie.

Herzog approaches the internet as if he is a stranger to it, leading to some very naive questions to the highly educated people he is interviewing. They are made to answer different questions than they are used to, and this leads to different answers. You can see Elon Musk being pulled out of his element by Herzog volunteering to go to mars.

Herzog has a gift of finding the peculiar in people and situations. I am a bit worried that some of the people he is interviewing is not aware of how he will present them. I'm sure Herzog does it with love, but it's still obvious that he pick moments in the interviews where they are at their most goofy.

When it comes to the subject itself, and it's interesting (though disjointed) exploration of the future of the internet and the connected world, but like any essay, it doesn't really answer any questions.

Werner Herzog has a long history of making some of the best and most well researched documentaries I've ever seen, and this one might just be the most relevant in today's world. Lo and Behold focuses on the effects things such as the internet have had on our planet, as well as all the things that can be considered related to the internet such as AI, video games, and hackers. While the film is not that short, it's hard to describe its contents since so many technical terms get thrown around. He begins at the University of California where, at the end of the 60s, pioneering work on the internet itself started, and we get a look at the very first computer installed there. Werner then interviews a bunch of people who work in various fields pertaining to technology, such as self-driving cars, autonomous robots that play football with each other, and radio telescopes that search the universe for any auditory signs of intelligent life. He even talks to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who even at this stage wants to send people (and the internet) to Mars, and believes it will be feasible soon. He's convinced that after the initial difficulties of establishing a colony on mars is achieved, giving the people living there internet access will be a pretty easy task: mars' hostile environment means internet coverage would only need to cover the limited amount of structures in the colony itself, which (according to Musk) would only require a few satellites. Of course, relaying information back to Earth would be somewhat of a problem, as the two planets are often at varying distances to each other. Herzog speaks with people that develop cars that are able to drive themselves, which is ironically a business Elon has been getting into in recent times. Someone tells Werner about how even though there are still many advancements to be made, self-driving cars already have a feature that enables them to learn from their own mistakes, and not only this, they're able to transfer the information to other cars. This allows the designers to continuously make lifesaving adjustments to the vehicles as soon as new information becomes available. Next, Werner deals with a serious subject, and devotes a whole chapter as to how the internet has been responsible for just as much evil as good. In 2006, a teenage girl named Nikki was killed in a motor collision in california. Pictures of her corpse (which were almost unrecognizable) were posted online, and within hours, millions of people had seen them. Due to the anonymous nature of the internet, some people will go out of their way to post extremely offensive and abhorrent things that you normally couldn't get away with in real life, and many users of different websites began taunting Nikki's family over this incident. Because of these cowardly attacks, her family has completely withdrawn from using the internet, and they are convinced it is immoral and evil rather than just bad. Unfortunately, the online world is full of people like this because there's no one to tell them they can't behave this way. It really should be against the law, but with no practical way to enforce it, it will remain a fantasy. Finally, Werner discusses the implications of hacking and artificial intelligence, the latter having a really big effect on the present. A guy who was a former hacker himself reveals some insight into the world of cybercriminal activity. Apparently, people are the weak link in cybersecurity operations, not technology itself. If you have a really well-protected company that has an expensive firewall and enviable antivirus software, all it takes is someone to persuade or bribe someone at that company, and the hacker is in. As for AI, some people being interviewed are convinced that within the next 60 years or so most manual labor jobs will be performed by robots, as they do repetitive tasks well. We have a long way to go however, since even insects are capable of more advanced actions than most robots. The internet is such a massive place, assembling a book of every user on it would stretch on for 72 miles, and nobody can predict what it will end up doing in the future. Once again, Herzog impresses me. I didn't really agree with Elon's plan of making mars a second home for humanity itself, since even if it works out someday, people will be restricted to living in bubbles because the whole planet is a barren rock that is -150 degrees. Werner does give his own thoughts on different subjects during the film but mostly lets the interviewees speak for him. Some of the concepts are beyond even my level of understanding when it comes to computers, but overall, this documentary was a smartly made, intelligently laid out presentation on arguably the most important innovation of this era.

I have seen Werner's name and jumped on it. Wow! Must see it.

Minute after minute it becomes more painful. An exercise in ignorance, a glorification of stupidity. Back in the late 1970s there was no Internet, only ArpaNET. Yet the director and his ignorant crowd find the Internet in 1969! And what a wonderful thing! When all your life you have used pen and paper and now, an old man, someone shows you the magic of Skype, sure, it looks magical. But when you look at the protocols of the Internet, how they were built, how they were simply a way some bearded geeks made computers actually talk in English words between them, it becomes scary. No encryption. No privacy. Not because the ones designing the internet ever cared about privacy. That was way beyond their ability. The broken email protocol in which anybody can inject emails and pretend to be someone else. All the identifying bits. The lack of certification, because they all knew each other. A mess. A disgusting mess that even today seems impossible to fix. Yet it remains the only option simply because nobody has the resources to start a second project.

And all are competing in who can be more ignorant. Did you know that on the Space Station one module communicates with another module on the Space Station through the Internet? The people inside might suffocate because some security cameras are trying to download the latest Xmen movie. Lawrence Krauss, the specialist into the Origins of the Universe. Actually a clown specializing in talking for big sums of money. Did he program something for the Internet? He is a physicist. Was Internet started in his University lab? Nothing at all. He is there to talk about "will it have its own consciousness?" He has no idea. But he has enough fans that he was inserted to help the box office.

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The internet is only a small subject for those that (like me) see it in the simple terms of what I know I do on it – check emails, read information, etc. However with such an expansive subject it was a good thing that the curious mind of Herzog was given the project of examining it in this film. I have read some people complain about the weakness of this film as a 'documentary', with comments about how key players such as Mark Zuckerberg and others are not included; the answer to such criticism is in the title, because this is not a documentary so much as it is a reverie, which is to say a musing and free-floating daydream through the subject.

In the editing suite this was obviously reined in somewhat because the film is structured into broad chapters. This helps the film be watchable, but importantly does not lose the sense of drifting through the subject with plenty to think about but nothing too solid that would break the state of reverie. Whether or not this works for you will depend on the individual, but Herzog's style made it work for me because he drives this approach with his angles and his line of thought (although he often seems less present than in some other of his films). It doesn't all fit together neatly of course, and at times tonally it is uneven, but mostly it is a quite fascinating wander through the ideas and connections of the internet, and is well worth seeing for what it leaves you with as much as what it offers directly.