The White Diamond (2004)

Calificación de los usuarios:

7.5/10   

Director:

Werner Herzog

Escritores:

Werner Herzog (writer) and
Rudolph Herzog (story)

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

13 enero 2005 (Netherlands)

Género:

Documental | Aventura | Biografía

Plot:

THE WHITE DIAMOND is a film about the daring adventure of exploring rainforest canopy with a novel flying device-the Jungle Airship...

Plot Keywords:

Airship | Expedition | Canopy | Flying | Rain Forest

Premios:

1 win

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Engaging and enjoyable despite the delivery problems associated with the people and the fact that the whole project feels like a pointless work of vanity

Reparto

Werner Herzog	...	Himself / narrator
Graham Dorrington	...	Himself (as Dr. Graham Dorrington)
Götz Dieter Plage	...	Himself (archive footage)
Adrian de Schryver	...	Himself (archive footage)
Annette Scheurich	...	Herself
Marc Anthony Yhap	...	Himself
Dr. Michael Wilk	...	Himself
Anthony Melville	...	Himself
Jan-Peter Meewes	...	Himself
Jason Gibson	...	Himself

Duración:

Germany:88 min | USA:90 min

País:

Alemania

Idioma:

Inglés | Alemán

Color:

Color

Relación de Aspecto:

1.78 : 1

Clasificación:

Australia:PG

Locaciones de Filmación:

Cardington Hangers, Bedford, Bedfordshire, England, UK

Compañía:

Marco Polo Film AG

Citas:

Marc Anthony Yhap: That is a beautiful view. It has a sunset and there is the balloon just floating around aimlessly. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's just fantastic. I'm so fortunate enough to witness something of a gem. I'm a miner mostly, and this is like a diamond. Nice big diamond. Yeah, I love this. This is cool. This is real cool. There is this big white diamond just floating around in the sunrise. It's good.

Conexiones de Película:

Referenced in Mise-en-abyme (2006)

Engaging and enjoyable despite the delivery problems associated with the people and the fact that the whole project feels like a pointless work of vanity

At one point in the development of air travel, the zeppelin was seen as the future. However after the Hindenburg disaster its days were essentially numbered although, decades later, London University lecturer Dr Dorrington has always had a dream of producing a small zeppelin to glide over the unexplored tree tops of a South American jungle. A previous attempt left a nature cinematographer dead so Dorrington is nervous about this next project and the responsibility he feels he has. As he reaches the endgame of his project he is joined Having only seen a couple of Herzog films I cannot refuge the comments of other reviewers that have said this is poor by his standards but for me I found it mostly very interesting. We only share a few scenes with Dorrington outside of the jungle and it is to the benefit of the film because it allows it to bring in things other than just his personality and his mission. So we look at some of the legends in the jungle and get to know some of the locals – specifically Mark Anthony who is funny and interesting, even if Herzog goes a bit far in painting him as some sort of great man to be learnt from. The main focus is still interesting, although I personally struggled to see the value in it, it was still engaging to watch it all come together and fall apart at different times.

At times the delivery by the individuals is a problem. Dorrington is a normal, driven person when he is not talking to camera but when he addresses the camera directly he suddenly turns into a sort of pre-school teacher. Given that he is a university lecturer I was surprised by the way he spoke in childish terms and strengthened his point by widening his eyes and making noises – at any point I expected him to take me through the square window. Herzog is OK but he did come off a bit pretentious at times. The best example of this is when he gets a really good shot through a water droplet on a leaf that shows the waterfall perfectly; it is a beautiful shot and is ruined by him asking Marc if he can "see the whole universe if that droplet". Fortunately the film keeps these "gems" to a minimum and mostly it is very engaging – the one take where Dorrington described the accident that happened a decade before is horribly enthralling.

The film looks good – someone else describing it as being home movie standard just doesn't know what he is talking about. I would have liked a lot more inspiring footage but there are still some excellently captured views and the sight of this perfect "white diamond" floating in the sky is a pleasing contrast to the rich greens and blues of the jungle. Overall an interesting documentary despite the delivery problems of the people, the occasional touch of pretension and the vanity value of the project and well worth seeing.