Grizzly Tale

THE DARK SIDE OF TEMPTING FATE

HOT REELS

One of the little-noted side effects of Prozac is the way it's drained all the romance out of madness—except, of course, in the films of Werner Herzog, whose love for crackpots, fantasists, dreamers, and divine lunatics in the Fitzcarraldo mold remains as ardent, and as cinematically fertile, as ever. The latest work by the former enfant terrible of New German Cinema is the astounding documentary Grizzly Man, which recounts the tragedy of a classic Herzogian holy fool, Timothy Treadwell. A self-styled environmentalist and grizzly-lover, Treadwell spent 13 summers communing with the furry beasts in Alaska's Katmai National Park, until the fateful, if not altogether unexpected, day in 2003 when one of them decided he looked rather palatable. (The animal also killed Treadwell's girlfriend, Amie Huguenard.) The film makes powerful use of some 100 hours of video footage Treadwell left behind, documenting not only his beloved bears but also his confessional monologues, full of goofy humor, narcissism, rage, and bitter disgust with the world of humans. Toward the end, as Treadwell's ramblings grow delusional, Herzog, who famously threatened to shoot Klaus Kinski if he abandoned the set of Aguirre: The Wrath of God, and clearly recognizes Treadwell as a filmmaking kindred spirit, observes in his beguiling Teutonic voice-over, "I've seen this kind of madness on a film set." Indeed he has, perhaps on every film set. (Rating: ★★★★) —AARON GELL