
Time Out
Blank's footage ... takes on a crazy life of its own as the Amazon tributary becomes a blackly comic shit creek of (off camera) tribal skirmishes.
Full reviewBAFTA-winner documentarian Les Plank's making-of doco follows Werner Herzog into the Amazon jungle to film Fitzcarraldo.
"The film lays out the troubled history of the production then follows Herzog and his antagonistic star Klaus Kinski into the Amazonian jungle as the four-year ordeal reaches its culmination. This is the film that first branded the jubilant angst of a Werner Herzog rant on our brains: the jungle has become an “obscenity… The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing. They just screech in pain.” A poet of simpler pleasures, Blank frames his bemused portrait of Herzog’s excesses within a lyrical portrayal of the indigenous work force. The juxtaposition is as unforgettable as the resemblance of Herzog to his fictional hero." (New Zealand International Film Festival)
LessBlank's footage ... takes on a crazy life of its own as the Amazon tributary becomes a blackly comic shit creek of (off camera) tribal skirmishes.
Full reviewFitzcarraldo, though full of notable sequences, doesn't entirely work; Blank's film, however, does. You don't have to have seen Fitzcarraldo to appreciate it. As Time Out said at the time, it takes on a crazy life of its own.
Full reviewLes Blank's Burden of Dreams is one of the most remarkable documentaries ever made about the making of a movie.
Full reviewWe aren’t aware of any way to watch Burden of Dreams in New Zealand. If we’ve got that wrong, please contact us.
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