Leçons de ténèbres

Herzog has been making brilliant films since the late '60s, and frankly it's a bit of a pain in the arse keeping up with such a prolific director.

However, if you are a fan of his features and staggering documentary work, "Lessons of/in Darkness" demands your immediate attention.

The film is essentially a birds-eye view (often quite literally) of the plague of oil-choked death, fire, chaos and destruction that resulted from the brief but grotesquely internecine technological blitzkrieg of the Gulf War. Herzog, of course, takes particular interest in the seeming madness of the crews of mercernary American firefighters that are putting out the oil well fires across the deserts.

Various points on the conflict and its aftermath inevitably bubble to the surface, but arise without overt proselytizing. The images do the majority of the talking.

And they are eye-popping. Startling, frightening visuals that stand out even in the Herzog canon -- great vistas of blackness and glowing terror that would make any sci-fi director soylent green with envy. They are accompanied by little else: brief interstitials, an almost nonexistent, terribly serious Herzog narrative and a ghostly and elegiac score.

The short interviews with individuals who suffered are heartbreaking, perhaps all the more so due to their brevity.

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While Werner Herzog has stated that he looks at his 1992 film Lessons of Darkness as a work of science fiction, it shouldn't be discounted as a documentary either. But unlike the recent Wild Blue Yonder, where Herzog made a true science fiction documentary, this time the line is further blurred by making everything involving humans ambiguous as to their connections with their surroundings. Despite the locations being discernible as to where it's at, and the two interviews being indicative of where the people are possibly from, he keeps his 54 minute plunge into the Kuwait oil fields a primarily visual trip. It sometimes even felt like someone had decided to do a documentary on some civilization in the future in some obscure sci-fi novel (or, for a moment, like some wayward planet in the Dune universe). It's best then, as Herzog suggests, to take one out of context of the period, even if seeing the green-screen images (however brief) of the war conjures up immediate associations. If looking at this without the associations of the Iraq war part 1 or the Kuwait connection in it all with oil however (as with Wild Blue Yonder not associating that its 'just' NASA and underwater photography), it fills one with an immense wonder at what can be captured by a lens not bound by conventions.

But amid the freedom that Herzog decides to use with his resources, he ends up striking his most visually compelling treatise on destruction to date. It's like he decided to take certain cues from Kubrick via 2001, and from just general nature documentaries, in order to capture the sort of alien aspect to this all. Because the act of setting these oil fields, which were left in a state of disrepair following said "fictional" war, is like facing nature off on a course against nature (fire on oil, then water on fire). There's also the element of industry that finds this way in this mix, especially because of the presence of human beings in this mix. Herzog, in avant-garde fashion (ala Dieter and Yonder) sections off the scenes with Roman numerals, and in theme and tone it does work (e.g. a part meant for showing the machines trudging around is labeled as being part of 'dinosaurs', or when the people set the oil on fire and the others are "mad" in coming in on it). And eventually what starts out as just simple, yet spatially complex, aerial takes on the tattered fields, turns into an act of seeing ruin and something that would seem incredible in an objective frame of reference.

But that doesn't mean Herzog limits it completely to total dialog-less landscapes (which, as Herzog has said in the past, he likes to think in grandiose terms he "directs") of fire and obtuse figures fanning and producing the flames. He also gets two interviews with women who were around when the war was there- one who is given no words for what she says except that her husband was killed, another who had a child with her and who is now traumatized- and somehow this too works even out of context. I'm sure that if Herzog had wanted to, even in limited time and circumstances he was in, he could be able to work some political stance in the proceedings. His decision to keep politics or anything of the immediate recognizable in concrete terms is a wise one. Not that there isn't something concrete to seeing destruction of this magnitude. But there's an abstract quality to all of this after a while that makes it all the more real in nature, while still keeping to a control of the subject matter into something that looks out of this world, ethereal, and somehow unnatural while still being about nature all the same (hence science-reality).

It's almost too arty for its own good in a small way, with Herzog's inter-titles and ultra-somber voice-over becoming like gravestones marking the sections of one set of madness to another. But there's also a daring here that is totally unshakable too, and from a point of view of cinematography it actually goes on par (if not occasionally seems to top) what Kubrick did in 2001 or what Lynch could've done in Dune, which is that a filmmaker uses places and objects that are of this world, but then taking the audience to a place that is also assuredly not so. It adds a level of mental discomfort, but then that's likely a big part of the point- seeing the oil burned by order of a government that's been on the news we watch every night is one thing (or rather was), but it's another to suddenly take it in another light, where in the realm of science-fiction it asks the viewer to raise questions via abstractions one might forget when taking it as complete truth. It's a hybrid film that you'd never see this in a cineplex next to the big-bang sci-fi action fare, but then most probably wouldn't want to.

Werner Hertzog's Lessons of Darkness is not your usual documentary. There's little narration, only two brief interviews, and no Nova style recreations. It's among the least informative docs I've seen, but it's not trying to educate. It exists merely as a visual record of the destruction wrought on Kuwait by Saddam's armies, and a reminder of the evils of which man is capable. On that level, it succeeds. The footage speaks for itself; you don't need anyone to tell you that you're looking at hell on earth.

Plus, Lessons of Darkness isn't a strait documentary in the purest sense. It's also intended as a silent parable of an apocalypse brought on by man's madness. When we see only endless desolation, fires and seas of oil stretching beyond the horizon, it's not hard to imagine that the entire world has been consumed. Some have considered this film to be anti-war. I suppose it is to a degree, although not overtly so. It doesn't deliver political commentary, or preach about the need for peace at any price but it does offer a stark reminder of the price of human conflict.

And what a price there was. Cities looted, people raped and murdered, burning wells and lakes of oil as far as the eye can see. Looking at the destruction, I'm overcome with the pointlessness of it all. I can understand why the Iraqi troops stole everything up to the marble on the buildings, but what does it gain them to light up every well, bomb every storage tank, and douse a national park with millions of gallons of crude? What bitterness and depravity drives men to set a country ablaze?

Even worse is what they did to the people. A mother tells how soldiers broke into her house at night, trampled her son almost to death, and shot her husband, enjoying themselves the whole time. There was no reason for this; it wasn't even done as part of a reprisal. How sick must a man be to derive pleasure from hurting an innocent child? Standing as a counterpoint to outright psychopathy of the invaders is the bravery and dedication of the firefighters putting out the blaze. There are no interviews with them, and no explanation of their craft, but simply seeing them drive a bulldozer or excavator up to mouth of hell, or physically manhandling a pipe junction onto a geyser of oil tells you that they must be incredibly courageous and a bit nuts. I personally cannot imagine what it must be like to work in such overpowering heat, clothes reeking of oil, with the knowledge that a single spark could blow you into kingdom come.

The movie's overall effect is sobering and haunting, with eeriness added by the sound track. I'm not sure why Hertzog chose most of the classical pieces he did. Some are dirge-like and sad, but most seem more fitting for footage of the moon, or a volcano. The odd pairing of music and visuals did not detract from my enjoyment of the film, but others might be somewhat weirded out. I am also at a loss to explain the scene in which workers cast flaming rags into jets of oil, reigniting them. The director, in keeping with his vision of apocalypse, suggests that the men a seized with insanity, and have become so used to the fires that they cannot live in a world without them. This is of course not the case, but for the life of me I cannot fathom what end it served.

All in all, this is not the film to see if want to learn more about the Gulf War and the rebuilding effort. However, if you are seeking a quiet reflection on the evil and madness that men are capable of, and a vision of what hell must surely resemble, this will do.

I was lucky enough to catch a one-off showing of this at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and it completely floored me. Although not for everyone (as with all Herzog films), he gives us a present day apocalyptic vision, infused with biblical and mythical power that ranks as highly as any of his feature film efforts. Herzog's lush visuals reach a new peak (in particular the aerial footage), as they are accompanied by incredibly fitting music and narration. This film is as close as cinema comes to painting. If you get a chance to see this, then do not hesitate. Prepare yourself for a rush.

Lessons of darkness is one of the most captivating, hypnotic experiences I have ever witnessed. I felt like I was in a strange nightmare and in an alien world. The film is almost purely visual; it is breathtakingly shot. It feels more like science fiction than most sci-fi films ever made. Absolutely haunting.