Werner Herzog
2004
90 minutes
This is a Werner Herzog documentary about an engineer who designed and built an airship to fly over the jungle canopy in Guyana. It also deals tangentially with the death of a cinematographer who was attempting to record some of his earlier efforts with launching the airship.
This documentary gets on your nerves quite a bit. The engineer has quite an ego and is very self-aggrandizing. It also quickly becomes obvious that he is sloppy about safety issues, which is likely what got his former colleague killed while testing previous flight setups. It's a bit like watching a famous test pilot like John Glenn or Chuck Yeager, except much of the daring seems like sloppy and unnecessary foolishness in pursuit of little good, and with the obnoxious added bonus of putting someone else's life in danger as well so that their own glorious genius and bravery can be properly recorded for others to appreciate.
You are at least reminded of one of your favorite jokes about a certain now-dead media personality who shall remain anonymous since only the structure of the joke is important and because it can be applied to so many others who still live on:
What is the difference between UNNAMED MEDIA PERSONALITY and the Hindenburg?
One was a bloated Nazi gasbag, and the other was just a dirigible.
Time to choose something different: