GRIZZLY MAN (DVD)

Director: Werner Herzog (Perhaps a “great” of German film, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, more)
Starring: Documentary

After 15 minutes of this DVD, I was terrified that I was watching nothing more than a glorified snuff film. You know, the old "man finds bear, man loves bear, bear lunches on man" story we've seen a thousand times. Luckily, I was wrong. This documentary about a silly guy who gets eaten was very much not what I was expecting.

The plot in a nutshell follows Timothy Treadwell, a compulsive, almost child-like presence, as he plays with wild grizzly bears in the Alaskan wilds. In some sense he was an animal activist, attempting to adertise the bear's situation. For 13 summers he got closer and closer to these wild animals until eventually he was killed and eaten by one. Most unfortunately, his foolishness cost him not only his own life, but the life of his girlfriend.

On one level this is an accurate description of this film. As the film progresses, however, it's startling just how much further it goes than these surface observations. This was significantly more than a crass look at this man's death.

Treadwell took a video camera with him during his trips to the wild north. The camera became a friend of sorts and a confidant. Gruesomely, it even captured his last moments where he was mauled by a bear. Luckily only sound survived from this final episode. I'm glad to say that Herzog did not include this audio, although I feared it at first. That really would have been unfit for this fine movie. We do get descriptions, however, and they are awful enough.

As the film unfolds we begin to see more and more layers in Timothy Treadwell’s confused persona. We see how his desire to play with bears has become a sort of religion for him. We see his own fears and inadequacies, his lonliness, and desire to connect with something greater. We see how he has even miscontrue his own place in the world. In reality this man is doing little more than taking pictures of some bears, and occasionally telling children about how wonderful they are. In his mind this has become a quest to save nature from the evil people he can't seem to connect to. In the film, he never really does anything concrete to save the bears. The closest he comes is to creep up on a group of men fishing on a lakeside. What in his mind is an odyssey of great proportions, becomes more clear as just another lonely soul searching for answers, or friends, or God.

This was an extremely powerful movie in my opinion. The unintended autobiography of this troubled soul reminded me greatly of another great nonfiction film, Capturing the Friedmans. In both films we see how a video camera can capture unintended moments of great sincerity. While discussing bears, Timothy manages to tell us much more about his own confusion that lead him to search for something more. I rate this as one of the best films of the year.

Standouts: Remarkably telling home video footage of an immature man searching for something more.
Blowouts: Not much, perhaps the teasing moments where the film describes his death in detail.

Grade: A

1/29/2006