There is only one Werner Herzog. The stoic German who, after being shot during a interviewAnswered in its signature Deadpan, “It is not a significant bullet”, has an affinity for them at the end of the world – death lines, lonely, mystics. Over his extraordinary work, he has slipped between fiction and documentary with the ease of a man who does not fear death. Now, 82 years, he has steadily made documentaries that explored a mix of modern and ancient phenomena – everything that allows him to travel and interview interesting odd balls. “Ghost elephants“Arrive with some extra fanfare and premiere in Venice together with the festival that assigns him a Lifetime Achievement Award in the form of an honorary lion.
On the surface, “Ghost Elephants” seems to be a throw to one of Herzog’s canonical classics “Grizzly man” (2005). Ill-Fated American Bear enthusiast and filmmaker Timothy Treatwell and Living South African conservationist and explorer Dr. Steve Boyes are both men more comfortable living in nature than among their fellow human beings. We meet Boye’s Misty eyes at the Smithsonian National History Museum when he is facing the taxidermied body of the largest bull elephant to be exhibited in all museums. This, he explains, is “Henry” and Boyes have carried a photo of him for a decade, only now see him for the first time. It is his dream to find the living descendants of Henry that he believes can roam an elevated Angolan plateau as the nickname “The source of life.”
The chief character of the expedition that follows, and the landscapes captured, urges a very different Herzog title. Although Boyes is much softer than the wild eyes Klaus Kinski, the meaningless desire to infringe on a country that does not need him evokes something of “Fitzcarraldo” (1982). This judgment is mine, for Herzog is very subtiles and more ambivalent in its framing boys, not quite suggesting in this film – Made for National Geographic with Disney money – that his subject is a loon, but equally, does not leave that interpretation from the table.
If Herzog has been forced by the task to show a reserve in the depiction of his leading man, he is more full state of his portrayal of the elephants in question; In the bay between his enthusiasm, it is possible to see where his strongest sympathy lies. Because even though the scene at Smithsonian originally seems to be set up to introduce us to Dr. Steve Boyes, it also introduces us to Henry, a majestic mammal called the “Féykövi elephant” after his murderer, Josef Féykövi.
To contextualize Henry, Herzog does most of the time in Namibia, where Boyes has gone to find a crack team of Master Trackers from Ju/Hoansi San Bushmen in Kalahari, one of the oldest cultures on earth whose language includes click. We meet a man named Xui who can “read tracks as a newspaper.” We also meet a future football player who turned anthropologist who tells the story of how Henry was shot and then chased 15 km in strong, brutal terms.
Herzog inserts a clip from the 1966 movie “Africa Addis” by a family of elephants thrown away from a helicopter (anecdotally, a member of the audience cried), as well as photos of a grinning Fényköi in front of the crumpled mountain of Henry’s fallen body. The absurdity of men who think it is an achievement to destroy beautiful creatures encounter powerful terms. As the anthropologist puts it, “The man is commissioned to destroy what he is a part of, which is biodiversity.” It’s hard not to remember one of Herzog’s most iconic and indelible lines, “I think the universe’s common denominator is not harmony, but chaos, hostility and murder.”
Times have changed and the big game hunting is in courage, although it will be so soon after upcoming images of elephant poppy, it is worrying when we witness the trackers who work a deadly poison in an arrow. “Ghost Elephants” is nothing if not a movie that connects to pages, and it is convincing when Xui tells a story about his own brush with the poison. In fact, it is in patchwork of vignettes that develop around boys, rather than the portrait of the man himself, that the film breathes and Werner Herzog’s autheurial colors flourishes.
His whimsical worship of the powerful animals in the heart of things is expressed in pictures of elephants moving underwater. These sequences and cut to other rare animals-offer a magical break from the under-baked plans for a man whose motive for finding the ghost fans are never fully articulated. The implication is that it is part of a conservation effort and yet, such as Dr. Boyes, Werner Herzog, San Bushman tracker and tracker from the Luchazi strain makes the 2-day trip from Namibia to Angolan Highlands, does not give the final goal any expected seriousness.
Herzog weighs each scene equally, does not use one to hype up the next. An audience with the King of Nkangala – whose permission is required to track the ghost flaws – develops as relaxed as images of a strains that spend all day to fix their instrument. There is actually more reverence for the latter sequence expressed in the story: “I know I shouldn’t romanticize him but I know that … surrounded by chickens … it doesn’t get any better than that.”
This is a jazz movie held together by Herzog’s distinct story with its irreverent humor. It is both frustrating and exciting to be kept in ignorance when it comes to his real views on boys. His subtle negging at the narrative cloth’s point is entertaining, but it also affects the structure of “ghost fans” and denies us an overall sense of perspective. The pleasure of listening to Herzog Speak comes from his staglys, so it’s hard not to feel that something is wrong in his implication -driven grip on Boyes.
Still, for those who are willing to share the image together from its most beautiful sections, this is a loving and affectionate pursuit of real animals and inaccessible dreams.
Rating: B.
“Ghost Elephants” premiered at 2025 Venice Film festival. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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