In seeking to answer the question "Whatever happened to Werner Herzog (after Fitzcarraldo)?" this week, I've watched all three of the DVDs of his post-1972 work that I hadn't seen. (the 1997 Cobra Verde and 2001 Invincible. The only other one, "My Best Friend, Klaus Kinski," I saw in its theatrical release and on cable, and highly recommend, is about the collaboration with the madman actor Klaus Kinski for which Herzog is best known.) Herzog has also made a number of documentaries, directed operas, and moved to somewhere in Northern California.

The title "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" of Herzog's 1997 documentary intrigued me. It turned out to be the story of another native of Bavaria who ended up in northern California. The movie opens with a balding Dieter Dengler going into a San Francisco tattoo shop (where Herzog had gotten a tattoo) and looking at a design of death riding down. Dengler says that the image is not right, that death does not ride, angels do. This statement intrigued me even more than the title, as, I'm sure Herzog, intended.

Although the movie does not live up to the expectations built by the title, Dengler's intimate familiarity with death is convincingly established as he tells about the military parts of his life in three of the main locales of his life: the village in which he was born (and in which his grandfather was the lone public opponent of the Nazi regime), Dengler's well-stocked house on Mount Tamaulpias (north of the Golden Gate), and Laos.

The quest for wings began when the child Dieter was looking out a third-story window as American fighter pilots strafed his village. He recalls making eye contact with one and determining he would himself take wing some day.

With no air force or airlines immediately after the Second World War, Dieter set off for America and enlisted in the army after spending a week or so on the streets of Manhattan. During his army stint he was armed with a knife, peeling millions of potatoes. He realized his chances of becoming a pilot would be improved with a college degree. He earned that, enlisted in the US Navy and became a bomber pilot, sowing destruction from the air, but from much higher than the pilot who had first inspired his obsession. The destruction seemed abstract from up there.

Quite soon, Dengler was learning about suffering on the ground. He was shot down over Laos in 1966 and captured by the Pathet Lao. Frightening as those captors were, a Viet Cong prison camp was far worse. The prisoners, seven of them, escaped. Dengler was the only one who made it out, only, he maintains, because death did not want him. He hallucinated it as a bear that was following him.

Dengler tells his story with great restraint against the German, American, and Laotian backdrops. His survival and eventual rescue make his explanation that death did not want him seem very reasonable. He continued to fly and survived three or four more crashes.

Having survived on the glue from wallpaper in bombed-out buildings as a child, Dengler survived on even more revolting fare in the VC prison camp. His California home was considerably beyond well-stocked. For instance, he had stockpiled a thousand pounds of rice for himself.

The documentary is short (77 minutes) and leaves out anything about his relationships after his rescue. In examining a monomaniac (first fixated on flying, then on getting to the Mekong) it is very Herzogian and has a Herzogian mix of heavy music (Bach, Dvorak, Wagner, chanting from Madagascar and Tuvan throat-singing) and some long takes. There are no crabs, but there are ethereally translucent jellyfish in aquariums (prefiguring the prominent placement of them in "Invincible"). It is not obvious to me why Herzog sometimes takes over telling Dieter Dengler's stories, paraphrasing rather than reproducing.

Since the documentary was released, Dengler has died (in 2001), and Herzog is currently making a feature film showing rather than telling a genuinely amazing story of obsession, heroism, and superhuman tenacity.

The DVD includes a theatrical trailer, a multi-"page" (screen) biography of Herzog and similarly lengthy production notes. The picture and sound of the documentary are both clear.






Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD