Lessons of Darkness

1992 science-fiction documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Herzog films burning oil fields in Kuwait and the workers trying their best to put the fires out.

Entirely engrossing piece here. Herzog narrates (at first, I thought, unnecessarily) and places the burning oil fields in a different context, almost like a disturbingly cautionary sci-fi movie, capped by a disturbing final line that for whatever reason stuck with me until I went to sleep. The imagery is spectacular, almost like a mixture of 2001 and somebody's home video of their vacation to hell. Swirling operatic music accompanies the startling nightmarish images of apocalypse, and it's all very very effective.

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