Lessons of Darkness
(German: Lektionen in Finsternis
) is a 1992 film by German director Werner Herzog.
An effective companion to his earlier film Fata Morgana
, Herzog again perceives the desert as a landscape with its own voice. Virtually devoid of commentary, the imagery concentrates on the aftermath of the first Gulf War - specifically on the Kuwaiti oil fires, although the film never mentions any relevant political or geographical information.
Herzog uses truck-mounted shots as in Fata Morgana
, static shots of the workers near the oil fires, and many helicopter shots of the bleak landscape. Herzog's sparse narration interprets the imagery out of its documentary context, and into a poetic fiction: the workers are described as "creatures" whose behavior is motivated by madness and a desire to perpetuate the damage that they are witnessing. A crucial "plot point" involves the workers, shortly after succeeding in stopping the fires, re-igniting the flow of oil. The narration asks, "Has life without fire become unbearable for them?" The film begins with a quotation, attributed to Blaise Pascal: "The collapse of the stellar universe will occur-- like creation-- in grandiose splendor." The text in fact was written by Herzog for the film, and attributed to Pascal to give the film's opening a certain mood. In addition the music in the film was also selected for a certain mood. [1]
This technique of re-contextualizing documentary footage was reused in Herzog's later film The Wild Blue Yonder
.
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LESSONS OF DARKNESS TICKETS
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