The White Diamond (2004)

The Worst Film Ever

hyped garbage

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Hoping to fly a helium airship over the rainforests of Guyana, scientist Graham Dorrington is convinced to let Werner Herzog film his airborne journey in this curious documentary from the acclaimed director of 'Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes' and 'Where the Green Ants Dream'. The beauty of untouched natural landscapes are a focal point in Herzog's fiction films and the shots of the rainforest are a clear highlight here, with extreme close-ups on the native flora and fauna. Only a handful of minutes are spent on the beauty of the rainforest though, and the rest of the film is uneven as Herzog flicks back and forth between Graham's passion for air travel, the hopes and dreams of a local diamond miner and Graham's fears of tragedy in-flight. Much of the film, in fact, pivots around how Graham attempted the voyage earlier, also with a cinematographer, and how the cameraman died in an accident while aboard. Herzog never really captures the risks involved with his daring decision to accompany Graham (after all, he survived to make this film and others) but it is pointed how Herzog crafts the doco around Graham not only capturing unchartered territory but also atoning for past mistakes and feelings of guilt. One's mileage with the film is likely to vary though depending on how one engages with this back-story. The rainforest shots are great, but they are just a small part of the overall product here.

Werner Herzog, as usual (considering the three Werner Herzog documentaries I have seen so far), narrates this one and he begins when the dream of the man of flying was only that, a dream. Now in Dr. Graham Dorrington we have a modern aeronautical engineer with a dream. Dorrington had in himself the dream of flying since long time ago, since he was a kid that stuff was in his mind and since then he knew the consequences. In the new "mission" of Dorrington Herzog was there…The film has like three sides; we watch the professional side with Dorrington and his team of course (and the people from Guyana) planning and checking every single detail of the airship and with Herzog himself. We watch a personal side of Dorrington with that chapter in his past and with the tragic thing that happened during a similar "mission" like 10 years before so right now like 14 years ago. And we watch the side of the film that has in the place and people the protagonists. Herzog and his team were there to capture the work of Dorrington but is obvious that once there they filmed some more fascinating material. Dorrington had one clear objective, to make work his new invention in that unexplored place, in Guyana. There were complications and we knew what was in Dorrington's mind every time he felt something was going to be wrong. And everything is about film-making; Herzog was filming a man who wanted to fly and film. And everything is about those brave filmmakers, a team filming impressive footage knowing that if the worst happens their way can be until there. Eventually the White Diamond flew and that image is nothing but just another of the many beautiful images that the film present to us. Apart of that we watch the interesting and touching story but not only the one of Dorrington. It is an encounter of different worlds, exactly as Dorrington said they were the ones with the professional knowledge and with the technology however nothing is comparable to the knowledge of a man like Marc Anthony Yhap who's home is that place. The White Diamond is a beautiful film and it is just another interesting and worth watching work from Herzog.

This film starts with an overview of the history of flight, especially the non-mechanical sort, and, of course, ends with scenes of the Hindenburg disaster in Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 1937, which kyboshed the dream of lighter than air vehicles as practical instruments of travel. Then, the film follows the obsessive modern flotative folly of aeronautical engineer, Dr. Graham Dorrington, of St. Mary's College in London, England, and his attempt to use a miniature blimp (which is diamond shaped and white) to circumnavigate the forest canopy in Guyana, in order to a) vindicate the death of a friend of his, documentary cinematographer Dieter Plage a decade before when an earlier blimp got tangled in Sumatran trees, and the man fell to his death trying to free himself from it during a storm, as well as b) ostensibly find out much about the canopy's resources for commercial development. Dorrington is a bit of a nutty guy, albeit rather tame by Herzogian standards. He lost two fingers on his left hand when, as a teen, he forgot to let go of a small rocket he was testing. Like most Herzog 'documentaries,' though, the term must be loosely applied, for Herzog is not merely recording Dorrington's obsession, but financing the expedition. This is made clear when, on the mini-blimp's maiden flight, Herzog insists that he take his camera along for the ride, in case it is the only flight the vehicle makes, and chides Dorrington's desire to test it alone, first, as stupid, and the worst sort of stupid. His rationale: 'I cannot ask a cinematographer to get in an airship before I test it myself.' It has been reported that much of that scene was scripted, but so what? Herzog has never been a literalist, no more than his pal Kinski was.The White Diamond is a minor film in Herzog's oeuvre, and much too digressive, even if a far better film than any other filmmaker could do with the materials at hand, but one wishes the DVD company, Wellspring, would have included some extra features, like a commentary by Herzog. All we get are a Herzog filmography, and some trailers- labeled as both Trailers and Coming Attractions. We don't even get this film's trailer in the bargain. But, why be grounded when this film is dedicated to the very antipodes?

This is a lyrical film more than anything. Herzog refuses to classify his documentaries as "documentaries" which I respect. Truthfully this isn't a straight forward documentary even if it does follow one man's quest to get his air ship to float above Guyana.Herzog is an observer more than anything and we see that in how his documentary is assembled, he does not force anything and he will leave his camera on people for longer than you would expect so that they will feel compelled to say something else.A random man will come up and start talking and Herzog will focus on him for several minutes. This film goes alongside Herzog's other films that represent men with near impossible dreams.