Werner Herzog
1989
52 minutes
This is a Herzog documentary that you assume you're going to hate, but which ends up being both grotesque and charming. It deals with some of the traditions and beliefs of an African tribe. The highlight is a sort of mating ritual beauty contest they have for men, where the unmarried men of the tribe will put makeup on their faces and line up and smile, and the women will pick their favorite painted doll bachelor from the line-up to get to know better during the festivities. It's like a Sadie Hawkins Day ball in Botswana or something. During the performance the men will dance and put on big weird grotesque smiles with wide eyes, trying to look beautiful for the ladies.
This reminds you a bit of your composition class in your senior year of high school. The teacher required every student to keep a journal, which you were given a chance to write in at-will or occasionally you'd be given a topic to write on and time to do so in class. The journals were all stored in the back of the classroom. Most of these activities were not graded--the teacher would read the journals and make comments and sometimes start conversations with students in private based on what they had written. You enjoyed jotting your absurd thoughts and observations down. The point of the exercise was to get students in the habit of writing their thoughts and opinions down in a creative manner (which clearly worked for you), but you suspect part of it was also because she enjoyed reading all the gossip about your classmates and finding out who was dating who.
One day before class, one of your dirtbag friends grabbed the glitter-bedecked journal of one of the smarter girls in the classroom who also happened to be a cheerleader. She was one of the most annoyingly positive people you have ever known. You found this intrusion both inappropriate and hilarious.
Your friend paged through her journal to see what kinds of deep dark secrets were hidden within this pony-sticker decorated tome. He started doing dramatic readings of the best bits he found in it, to the amusement of everyone but the cheerleader's friends. The best bit he found was an extremely earnest entry she had written unprompted about the importance of smiling. She went on for several paragraphs about how a smile is a gateway to making friends and putting smiles on the faces of other people--so turn that frown upside-down!
As funny as you found this at the time, you reflect that there are worse things to be than someone who tries to guide rays of sunshine directly up other people's asses.
Time to choose something different: