The Ayers Mining Company is conducting research for uranium extraction in Aborigine lands. The Aborigines resist, as constant explosions could destroy a place they consider sacred because, according to their mythology, it is where the green ants dream of the creation of the world.

This hidden nugget from Werner Herzog’s globetrotting filmography—his first feature in English, based on a real-life case and shot Down Under—is a deceptively simple courtroom drama laced with complex ideas, as universal human absurdity faces off against the cosmic.