Mysterious, best left alone, of an ominous origin, and seemingly ready to burst at any moment — let’s just get this out of the way and say that, yes, Werner Herzog‘s dramatic interests and volcanoes are a match made in heaven. The master’s latest documentary, his third feature this year, and the second 2016 endeavor about volcanoes is Into the Inferno, a study of civilizations living under the specter of eruption. The picture made a nice impression at TIFF just last month, and there’s no need for a wait: Netflix will be bringing it to our home in merely eleven days. Rarely has “Netflix and chill” seemed less fitting a statement.
But it’s worth the investment, viewer- and company-wise. As we said in our review from this year’s TIFF, “Herzog is far more likely to be impressed by human eccentricity than grandiosity – like the enthusiasm of a particularly bubbly archaeologist, or the tenets of a cult which believes an American named John Frum will one day lead them to salvation, bringing chewing gum and refrigerators. But it’s all impermanent, ultimately. Into the Inferno is a memento mori aimed at the whole human race, and only Herzog could make one this non-pretentious, funny, curious, and respectful at the same time.”
See the preview below:
Herzog and Oppenheimer first met ten years ago on the slopes of the Mount Erebus volcano in Antarctica during the filming of Encounters at the End of the World. Their newest film never stops moving, never stops seeking. We see Oppenheimer in Indonesia at Lake Toba, which 74,000 years ago was the site of one of the most massive eruptions known to man. Oppenheimer and Herzog travel to Mount Sinabung, where they narrowly escape a deadly eruption, and then visit Mount Merapi on Java, one of Indonesia’s most sacred volcanoes. They travel to the hottest desert on earth in Ethiopia, to Iceland, and perhaps most amazingly to the center of North Korea. Throughout, they investigate the wildly imaginative and wildly diverse stories that people have told about the presence and meaning of volcanoes. There is Mount Paektu in North Korea, for example, venerated by the current regime as a birthplace of the Korean nation and the revolution. There is the Codex Regius, Iceland’s most precious possession, an ancient text that tells of a tenth-century volcanic eruption. Into the Inferno is vintage Herzog, offering extraordinary locales, outré characters, improbable stories and, through it all, a chance to go deep inside a mesmerizing subject and emerge with new understanding.
