Handicapped Futures
Werner Herzog: 3 Documentaries
Ballad of the Little Soldier. 1984, 44 minutes.
Handicapped Future. 1971, 43 minutes.
Lessons of Darkness. 1992. 54 minutes.
There was a time when Werner Herzog was not “Werner Herzog” — avuncular sage and domesticated dispenser of motivational platitudes. An elder statesman of soft rebellion and mildly existential nuggets. Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984) dates from before the great decline, or absorption into the ravenous maw of gross American mimetic culture. The first thing you notice about Werner in this trek into the wilderness is how utterly fucked he looks. This is no impeccably coiffured Louis Theroux swanning around the manosphere or Alan Whicker touring the world in safari jacket and sensible shoes (younger readers may need to google this globetrotting staple of British television). Werner has taken it upon himself to journey through the jungles and swamps of Nicaragua to reach the elusive Miskito tribes, an indigenous people currently being genocidally slaughtered by the Joe Strummer-backed Sandinistas.