Fata Morgana

1971 oddball documentary

Rating: 14/20 (but could quite easily be a little bit higher or way lower)

Plot: None really. Herzog films lots of stuff, mostly, I'm guessing, in Africa. He films jets landing, desert landscapes, mirages, the carcasses of airplanes or other vehicles, the bones of dead animals, people in goggles, people without goggles, some animals, and some unidentifiable things. He throws it all together in three parts titled Creation, Paradise, and The Golden Age. Throw a female voice narrating a creation myth and some weird poetry and you've got yourself a documentary!

One of the most bizarre documentaries I've ever seen, Fata Morgana (Mirages, apparently) is sort of like a low-budget Koyaanisqatsi mixed with Errol Morris's glimpses at eccentrics. I'm not sure it all adds up to much; it really looks more like a dada-documentary or something. But it does have some moments of true beauty and even more of those fantastically entertaining "What the heck?" moments and it's for the most part entertaining. And it does capture this world that may only exist in Herzog's editing room but that is nevertheless worth exploring. This documentary seems to become more and more unhinged as it progresses although there's not exactly anything normal about starting out with five or so minutes of airplanes landing and following it up with the weird creation myth and images that seem to have nothing to do with that creation myth. But by the end, you've got the natives pointing and looking confused, a strange musical duo (a pimp on drums and distorted vocals and a woman on piano) that according to the commentary was filmed at a brothel, a guy with a ukulele who can't control his laughter as another guy reads poetry, and a turtle expert who informs us about where the food enters and leaves the turtle. And those goggles in the above picture with the guy holding the lizard? Herzog forced those goggles upon no less than three people he encountered. I rewatched some of this with commentary provided by Herzog, some other guy, and Crispin Glover. It was not exactly enlightening.