Into the Inferno

Dir: Werner Herzog

2016

*****

Werner Herzog’s fascination with Volcanoes continues in, what I think, is his best film on the subject so far. Back in 1977, Herzog and a small team went to Guadeloupe just as the locals were evacuating, to try to find an elusive man who had been said to have stayed put in defiance of the imminent eruption. They found him and he sang angrily at them until they went away. Herzog is of course fascinated by the volcanoes themselves, the force behind them and their great importance, but also on the effect they have on the people who live beside them and worship them. Indeed, as he puts it himself, “there is no single one that is not connected to a belief system” and in Into the Inferno he travels with volcanologist and friend Clive Oppenheimer (whom he worked on the 2007 film Encounters at the End of the World with) to active volcanoes in Indonesia, Iceland, Ethiopia and, rather impressively, North Korea. Oppenheimer pretty much takes on the role of presenter and Herzog stays behind camera for the majority of the film, narrating the final cut as he usually does. Oppenheimer isn’t exactly the wild man you might expect from a Herzog film but he does have an amazing ability of connecting with just about anybody, no matter where they’re from or what they believe. He is exactly the person you want beside you when peering into a lava-filled volcano. There isn’t half as much theology as I was expecting from the film but the viewer is treated to the odd Herzigoan-style quote – “It is a fire that wants to burst forth and it could not care less about what we are doing up here. This boiling mass is just monumentally indifferent to scurrying roaches, retarded reptiles and vapid humans alike”. Fans will appreciate the references to previous Herzog films though, and not just the ones he’s made about volcanos. It’s also interesting how he incorporates footage from others, such as the French couple Maurice and Katia Krafft, who got dangerously close to volcanoes to film them, much to their demise in 1991. They are the sort of people Herzog would have documented if he’d had the chance but here he honors them and shows off their amazing footage. However, like most of Herzog’s documentaries, the jewel of the crown is the people he meets. The brash American paleontologist in Ethiopia who discovers some of the world’s earliest remains live on camera, the tribal elder of a village on Vanuatu who believes the volcano will, one day, engulf the earth and melt everything until it turns to water, the locals of an Indonesian tribe who have kept a legend of a supernatural American GI called John Frum who will, one day, emerge from the volcano to spread his bounty. When asked what that bounty consisted of, the tribesman shrugs and answers “Candy”. Herzog collects interesting characters like philatelists collect stamps but never are his questions intrusive, nor does he ever try to mock his subjects. This is classic Herzog. Possibly his biggest coop in the film, possibly of his entire career, is the way he gained access to North Korea. There is a volcano there which he films but he doesn’t miss the opportunity of filming life behind the drawn curtain, presenting the world – for the first time – glimpses of what has been largely unseen and certainly never filmed. Herzog keeps the subject on point, but elevates the theology with a brilliant slice of a current fascination. It is hypnotizing and utterly engrossing. Even though you pretty much know what you’re getting into with a Herzog documentary it is never predictable or cliché. The petrified figures of Pompeii are never mentioned for example and everything you think you know about volcanoes is untaught. Completely original but with plenty of classic Herzogian moments to cherish. Brilliant.