Werner Herzog thinks of himself as a story-teller and as a Bavarian film-maker. His 1976 movie "Herz aus Glas" is very, very Bavarian, primarily set in an alpine Bavarian (with some striking scenes from Alaska, the Faroe Islands, Yellowstone, and across the border into alpine Switzerland) with heavy doses of Bavarian folklore and beer (glass-blowing is hot work!).

The story-telling on the director's commentary track is superior to that in the movie itself. The storyline of the movie is that a master glass-maker (foreman of the "factory") in some time around 1800 has died without passing on the secret formula for the village's distinctive ruby glass. The owner of the glassworks is senile and has not stood up in a dozen years. His son becomes unhinged trying to recover the secret formula on which the village's prosperity depends. Counterpoised to his increased insanity is a prophet who spouts dire predictions (that can be fitted to the Nazi catastrophe then far in the future as well as to village events). The villagers are in the grips of mass delusions (also prefiguring the Nazi future). The prophet, Hias (short for Matthias, and played by Josef Bierbichler) is supposed to be the sane one, though he hallucinates (and wrestles with) a bear.

The movie opens with eight minutes of Bavarian scenery, including fog rolling into a valley and ends with the story of some medieval men on a very steep North Atlantic island (one of the Faroe islands between Ireland and Iceland) who decide to see if they are really at the edge of the world, doubting that the world is flat. They are encouraged that gulls follow their small boat into the unknown.

Sounds strange? It's far stranger, because in the Bavarian middle art of the movie everyone except the glassblowers while blowing glass (intrinsically fascinating to watch) and the prophet were hypnotized while performing in the movie! They look and sound dissociated, 'cause they are. Herzog explains the limits of a hypnotist's control and the ease with which he was able to hypnotize "actors" (most of the players responded to ads and were not professional actors).

Interesting as Herzog's commentary track is about how he filmed what he did, he refuses to explain what the movie is supposed to mean. The masters he had in mind were Dovshenko and Breughel, visual influences that can be seen, but tellers of simpler stories.

There are some who adore "Herz aus Glas." Herzog says that the movie is very popular in Scandinavia, but far too slow for Americans. Although being of Scandinavian descent, I'm thoroughly in the American camp for this movie and found it boring (as well as confusing). Unquestionably it has some very striking images. I'd rather look at them than try to follow or try to suspend disbelief in the story or try to sort out the ravings of Hias.

From documentaries (Burden of Dreams; My Best Friend, Klaus Kinski) and commentary tracks (Cobra Verde, Invincible), I know that Herzog is a wonderful, ironic, informative raconteur (completely fluent in English), so even though the movie bored me, I played it again to hear the commentary track. (The only disadvantage to watching the DVD with the commentary track the first time, for non-German speakers, is that the music is hard to hear.) I'd give the commentary track 5-stars. The 2-star rating is for the movie. If I were rating the DVD, the commentary track and the music (mostly of Popol Vuh) might raise it to 3.5.

Although there are many Herzog movies I consider great (Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, Little Dieter Needs to Fly) or nearly great (Cobra Verde, Invincible), and many that I have not seen (including the much-admired "Kaspar Hauser," "Where the Green Ants Dream," and "Even Dwarves Start Small"), I don't much care for the movies he made in the late-1970s (Heart of Glass, Stroszek, Nosferatu, Woyzeck), though each of them has memorable images (and the latter two, Klaus Kinski acting out).


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