Where the Green Ants Dream (1984)

Too much of everything

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Herzog is a simple man, easy to read. Hearing him talk of his films, one gets bored easily. His films are simply conceived, like Lynch's, but once he gets rolling, his intuitions take him to strange, exotic corners of the soul. There he leaves traces that last. I love the man's work, much of it. I love the fact that he really seems to be driven by urges that seem to accidentally result in something that can cross the distribution divide to reach me. This is no small feat; the films I watch that have ideas and matter are what — maybe a millionth, a billionth? of the similarly deep insights and artifacts that would have similar effect in me, but which cannot cross that divide.When I watch his work, some of which I reserve for the future, it is a dip into the film of Herzog. Failures add to this. Risks that did not pan out for him, do for me.This film has some heavy disadvantages. He is in Australia and he simply does not understand that to photograph the land the way it affects its inhabitants, you have to photograph nothing. Nothing is what matters. But he gives us a tornado. Its beautiful and violent — it even fits the story. He gives us unrelenting piles of boring waste. This too is effective in the film, but not of the place.He misses both the place and he people. He does give us beautiful Aboriginal faces. He does celebrate them. But its from a deeply disturbing patriarchal, colonial perspective. There is some of this in his Peruvian adventures, but it is hidden in his respect for the Jungle. The natives are simply part of the terrain. He cannot do that here. This also suffers in that he felt it necessary to have an on-screen observer who "learns" the value of the place and turns from heading the mining effort to living with the people.The result is that the film is overt in its sentiments, but everything works against its honesty. We are left with having to accept it locally, each scene as a sort of standalone taste: black patient faces staring out of pilot seats in an airplane given to them; a man on a witness stand testifying in a language no other soul on the planet understands; an old biddy waiting in the sun at a mine opening on the of chance that her beloved doggie will reappear; that tornado; the (overearnest) story of the sleeping green ants whose dreams we are.This has value in those small pieces, pretty much throughout. But in the large, taken the way he intends it, its just a colonial German peering into a quaint culture as an ordinary tourist would. So it dilutes the greater story, the greater film of the man.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

There are three distinct styles of German director Werner Herzog's films. There are his great, deep, and memorable fictive films- such as Aguirre: The Wrath Of God, The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser, and Fitzcarraldo, there are his smaller evocative documentary-like films- such as Fata Morgana, Little Dieter Needs To Fly, and Grizzly Man, and then there are his unclassifiable films- such as Even Dwarfs Started Small, Heart Of Glass, and 1984's Where The Green Ants Dream (Wo Die Grünen Ameisen Traümen). Whereas Even Dwarfs Started Small is an enigmatic study on Fascism that is beyond evaluation on a normal scale, and Heart Of Glass was filmed with its actors hypnotized, Where The Green Ants Dream is an odd concoction that mixes all three of Herzog's styles, along with the excellent cinematography of Jorg Schmidt-Reitwein, in its 95 minute running time.Where The Green Ants Dream is not Herzog at his greatest, but it is an interesting and good little film that rises above the contemporary condescending approach to Natives, and compels anyone who starts watching it to finish watching it. Just compare it to the ongoing American obsessions with Noble Savage Native Americans and Mystical Negroes, and the difference is clear. In the commentary, Herzog even laments that this film is too preachy at times, in scenes with both the Elders and the small minded Arnold, and how his own personal disagreement with the Green parties around the world are due to their lack of empathy for humans, while praising nature at all costs. It is especially noteworthy to compare this film to the work of Native American director Chris Eyre, who made Smoke Signals and Skins, for one can see numerous areas where the younger director could learn much from a Master like Herzog, who, even when not in top form, can create compelling art that lasts, even if in ways as odd as his subject matter.

Some idiot claims that this movie is horrible but I would argue that this he/she is mistaken. None of the dialog is improvised though the performances are raw which the previous reviewer might be confusing with improvisation. Most fans of Herzog are also aware that Herzog's dialog is highly stylized and often surreal which may, to close minded people, be misconstrued as trite or childish. Perhaps it is something one has to get used to or maybe Herzog films are best left to those who are willing to view something out of the ordinary. Of course, not everyone will like everything, but opinions that are expressed should only come from people who are informed as an uninformed opinion is like showing a dog a card trick.

Interesting account on the fight for land rights by the Aboriginals who are up against a mining company that do the dirty on them by disturbing the land where the green ants dream! The message comes across through this sometimes messy film.