Grizzly Man (2005)
Werner Herzog has always claimed that there’s no real difference between his documentary and fiction films.
His subject in Grizzly Man is environmental activist Timothy Treadwell.
Treadwell is as much a flawed, charismatic dreamer as the protagonists Klaus Kinski played in Herzog’s features Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, the Wrath of God.
Treadwell was killed in 2003 by one of the bears he spent many summers observing, filming, interacting with and obsessing over.
A troubled man-child given to anthropomorphizing the carnivores around him, Treadwell comes across as a likable and tragic in footage he shot himself, edited together with interviews Herzog shot for the film.
Herzog is incisive in his voiceover: “In all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature.”
Richard Thompson’s guitar score offers some joy as Herzog is looking into that abyss.
