Kritiken

Fact, fiction and whatever lies in between are a means to extoll this fundamental quandary: the ephemeralness of the human experience and awe that it even exists. To watch one of Herzog's films is to enter into a state of madness, the only reasonable response to the world portrayed on the other side of the director's camera, an extension of his own perception.

Herzog's voiceover and his choice of music—heavy on the sacred and the Wagnerian—dominate, but Oppenheimer's analytic approach grounds the director's romanticism. Unlike Herzog, whose focus is the individual, Oppenheimer is interested in social structures, the belief systems and myths that provide stability—or the illusion thereof—to societies that live with the memory and the anticipation of nature at its most cataclysmic.

Herzog speaks with the Olympian contempt of a volcano god himself, or the contempt of a filmmaker who knows that we caviling critics, scurrying roaches as we are, can say what we like—the unstoppable flow of Herzog's increasingly self-parodic discourse rolls on, conquering all in its wake, and people will still pay to hear it.

If you go into a Herzog documentary hoping for a definitive, deep look at a certain subject, you're bound to come away disappointed. But if you go into them expecting a series of portraits of obsessed people, each painted by one of the most likable obsessives in cinema, you're likely to come away satisfied.

There's a good reason why "La Soufrière" ran about half an hour. Into The Inferno only reaches feature length thanks to numerous digressions, like playful but irrelevant shots of little boys from a jungle tribe pretending to be menacing for the camera. For every at least potentially exciting moment at or near the rim of a volcano, the film throws in some meandering anthropology, with Herzog asking the locals of various countries about their relationship with the slumbering beast in their midst.

Herzog's filmography has, until now, offered as varied and astonishing a catalog of natural phenomena as you could hope for. But on a level both visceral and abstract, he seems deeply enthralled by the volcano in its boundless capacity to create and destroy, its impact on not just the ground beneath our feet but also the very atmosphere we breathe.

In his latest, "Into the Inferno," Mr. Herzog takes you straight to the edge of the abyss. In quotidian terms, it is a documentary about volcanoes. In Herzogian terms, it is a metaphysical exploration of the wonders and terrors of nature as well as the fragility and comedy of human life, complete with beautiful cinema-tography, haunting music, a church that looks like a chicken and a Communist attraction that resembles a Bethlehem manger.

Incredible discoveries await viewers of Into the Inferno (the last stopover is perhaps the strangest, and shouldn't be spoiled), who will be rewarded by typical Herzogian marks of excellence: stunning cinematography, spine-tingling music selections, and illuminating and poetic narration. Into the Inferno could be described as "par for the course" if that phrase wasn't pejorative: the film is yet another triumph from Herzog, whose catalogue remains as ineffable as it is wide-ranging.

The Kraffts died for their obsession, in an eruption in Japan, and so they're also ideal protagonists for a Herzog film, but they're covered in passing like everyone and everything else in this production. Into the Inferno has unforgettable moments, but Herzog's daring spontaneity, often the font of his inspiration, scans here as indecision.

In each case [The B-Side, Abacus and Into the Inferno], the filmmaker takes what might initially seem like a small or unpromising subject and through observation, patience and curiosity unearths unexpected layers of truth, humanity and transcendence.

In the end, Herzog's obsession with death comes back in full force for its finale, which basically posits volcanoes as God-like entities profoundly indifferent to the "scurrying roaches, retarded reptiles, and vapid humans" on the ground. Rarely has the intrepid German adventurer/filmmaker been so direct in articulating his pessimistic worldview.

Oppenheimer gets a response typical of Herzog's films: a charming and surreal story about how the fire in the volcano's belly spat out a spark one night to light his cigarette for him. These are the gems that can be found glistening amongst the lava flow, the profundity that Herzog always uncovers in the playful, and while Into the Inferno is not his tightest work, it offers no fewer riches.