The Eclectic Choice: Lessons Of Darkness

Lessons Of Darkness (1992)

dir. Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog is as good of a documentarian as he is a narrative filmmakers. Both contain a visual magic. Herzog style works to find beauty in ugliness and the ugliness behind beauty.

Lessons Of Darkness is an hourlong documentary that looks at the fires in the oil fields of Iraq after the Gulf War in 1991. What we see are amazing images and mile after mile of oil lakes and burning spouts across a landscape that seems almost alien.

Accompanied by classical music we are pushed and pulled at the beauty and horror of the situation. The camera flies over the oil soaked terrain and settles near gushing flames that erupt into the air billowing dark clouds of smoke. Watching teams move in and stop a fire is one of the highlights. When the explosives go off we get an astonishing image of the ground rising and the fire snuff out like a match being extinguished.

There is a piece of narration at the end where we see firefighters re-ignite a well and Herzog questions if these men they need the fires versus the technical reason for them starting the fire. It's a bit hokey, but does reiterate the otherworldliness.

Well worth the purchase and will be a film that looks insane on a big screen tv when/if they decide to put out a Blu-ray version.