Gasherbrum - Der leuchtende Berg

In English, this film is known as "The Dark Glow of the Mountains" and it originally aired on German television. The version I saw was dubbed into English with no subtitles. The documentary is by Werner Herzog--a guy whose documentaries I really have enjoyed.

This film is a documentary about some mountain climbers who are attempting to climb two nearby peaks without fancy equipment such as oxygen tanks! I've gotta be honest about this--I really couldn't care less about the sport and I've always thought folks who attempt such crazy high climbs are nuts. So, my enjoying this one is a very difficult sell.

The first part of the film has very little narration and little is said. Mostly, the two crazy climbers mucked about their camp and interacted with villagers. I was bored. Later, when the men talked to the camera about climbing, I was more interested--particularly because this all seemed to confirm to me that they were nuts! One talked about recently losing his brother while climbing as well as losing toes due to frostbite. In many ways, the film now would have been interesting to show a psychology class to discuss what is going on with the guy--after all, MOST people would have a devil of a time understanding him. Otherwise, the film didn't do much for me--perhaps you will get more from watching it. Technically speaking, the film was competently made and a bit difficult--so I can at least respect the work Herzog and his crew did for this one.

"The Dark Glow of the Mountains", available on DVD in a collection of some of Herzog's lesser-known documentaries and shorts, is an uneven but fascinating doc, and while it is perhaps not as good as it could have been given how it features the great mountain climber Reinhold Messner, who climbed all 14 8000 meter peaks between 1970 and 1986, and was the first to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen tanks (he used small oxygen bottles, but repeated the ascent in 1980 on a tougher route without any oxygen whatsoever), it is still a fascinating and unique sort of documentary, examining the psychology it takes to get people interested in doing this sort of thing.

It's a Herzog doc so you can expect two things right off the bat: some stunning images and some inane contrivances. Herzog made a couple of documentaries where he didn't feature such contrivances, but this is not one of them. Essentially he sets up a conversation with the subject and asks about something he thinks affected their psychology then gets the reaction from them. This may be a standard documentary technique, but Herzog most certainly scripts many of these scenes in his movies, or possibly just tells the subject what to say. It's obvious and distracting and unnecessary, as the movie itself does nothing but discuss the exact same things discussed in that conversation here, but still Herzog feels compelled to include this scene to make things ultra-obvious for the audience. For a director so often seen as an art-house favorite he sure seems like he's pandering sometimes.

In spite of that one big flaw, this is an excellently-shot and structured film, and one which provides some insight into Messner's character and psychology. It's interesting and fairly short, but I can't help feel that Herzog didn't accomplish as much as he should have done here. Still a fascinating and completely unique document.

7/10

Not quite as interesting as you might hope a Werner Herzog documentary about mountain climbers would be, The Dark Glow of the Mountains is still a decent enough watch, and is certainly watchable considering its length.

Its central figure seems a bit boring at first, or perhaps not as eccentric as I'm used to central figures of Herzog documentaries being. He remains quite grounded and not particularly strange or anything, but he does have at least one emotional interview here. His story, as told here, is decently interesting and moving enough, but I don't know... I just was expecting a little more out of this one.

The film has got its limits narratively and visually that really hold it back, but by no means can it be called bad or anything. It's worth it for fans of Werner Herzog's documentaries, so long as you don't go in expecting too much.

Dark Glow of the Mountain, The (1984)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Interesting documentary from Werner Herzog follows world famous mountain climbers Reinhold Messner and Hans Kammerlander as they scale both of the Gasherbrum mountains, which are 8,000 meters each. The documentary really doesn't focus on the difficulty of the climb but instead the psychology of what it takes to be willing to do something as dangerous as this. Herzog asks some hard questions about their mental state and if they have a death wish and their answers are kind of unique.

No One Will Play With Me (1976)

*** (out of 4)

Werner Herzog directed short about a young boy who plays alone in his classroom because no on there wants to play with him. One day a girl goes back to his house to see his pet raven and then we learn why he is the way he is. This is a rather bleak and depressing little film and Herzog perfectly captures the mood of the "secret", which I won't reveal here.

Ballad of a Little Soldier (1984)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Werner Herzog documentary takes a look at the children soldiers caught up in the Miskito Indian battle in Nicaragua. The first part of the film takes a look at the adults doing their thing but it grows rather boring pretty quickly. The interviews by Herzog are honest and straight forward but nothing really picks up the drama actually going on with the kids.

Werner Herzog's films, fiction and non-fiction, are nothing if not an awestruck yet objective examination of humanity, in all its complexity. While unparalleled natural beauty also features in his pictures, as wondrous as it may be it's truly only a setting - the circumstances in which humans are to be analyzed. 'The dark glow of the mountains' is filled from head to toe with incredible, breath-taking footage of some of the most remote landscapes on Earth, yet sure enough, it's mountaineers Reinhold Messner and Hans Kammerlander who are the true focus of the documentary. This is a movie that's superficially very succinct and direct - but not least as it's accompanied by the grandeur of still another fantastic original score from Popol Vuh, at once both inspiring and haunting, for those willing and able to pry beyond what the eyes see, this is just as rich and captivating as anything the filmmaker has given us in his career.

In their own (translated) words, Messner and Kammerlander themselves can't quite pin down the motivation behind extreme mountain climbing. Between the astounding imagery and the grasping at language, however, what begins to take form is an idea that I'd surmise to be at the heart of Herzog's own pursuit as a documentarian and storyteller. What drives a person to ascend in sequence two of the highest peaks in the world isn't a psychology that can be easily seen, heard, or otherwise described, but a notion that in its most pure essence is something that can only be felt. It at once seems esoteric and intellectual to the point of pretension, but also inescapably human, to impart that to Go is to Be. Even at that, though - one can say it, and read it, but what does it mean? Messner and Kammerlander know; even homebody viewers can pick up on it if they're sufficiently discerning.

While Herzog provides a measure of narration, his point of view scarcely matters in this picture except as an observer. And what he sees, and lets us see through his eyes, is a portrait of humanity that may be far removed from the lived experience of most audiences, but which stirs recognizable deep sentiments of yearning. Rounded out with Rainer Klausmann's excellent cinematography, and swell editing by Maximiliane Mainka, 'The dark glow of the mountains' is as niche a cinematic experience as most any of Herzog's works, and made more so as viewers need to truly look inside to earnestly derive utmost meaning from the title. Invariably, however, the end result is a film that's discreetly mesmerizing, and which is surely just as well worth 46 minutes of our time whether we can find within ourselves the same transcendental spark, or if we're just here for the dazzling mountains and the physical journey. I can surely understand why this won't appeal to everyone, but if you get it, you really Get It.