Director Werner Herzog documents the life of Timothy Treadwell, a self-styled “protector” of the fearsome bears, one of which would maul him and a girlfriend to death in 2003. Treadwell extensively filmed himself and the Alaskan grizzlies with whom he lived for part of each year, and Herzog utilizes this footage as well as after-the fact interviews with friends, family, and the occasional foe. Treadwell comes off as a New Age-y Californian who also has deep reservoirs of anger. Herzog, who views his subject with a mixture of sympathy and disagreement, offers his own views at times, making the documentary more personal than most, as if told by a fair-minded, but not uncritical, friend. Treadwell is an exemplar of self-invention, but also self-delusion. The acoustic score is by guitarist Richard Thompson.
IMDB link
viewed on DVD 2/1/08; reviewed 2/7/08
No comments:
Post a Comment