For the first half of Werner Herzog's "Rescue Dawn," the fictionalized movie based on his documentary 1997 "Little Dieter Needs to Fly," I wasn't sure if Herzog had tamed the commercial feature or if it had tamed him. By the end, I felt it was the most harrowingly realistic and unsentimentalized P.O.W. film I'd ever seen.
The story is "inspired by" Dieter Dengler, an American Navy pilot (born in Germany) whose plane crashed in 1965 in Laos, where there wasn't supposed to be any bombing and before there was a "War in Vietnam." U.S. "military advisors" were there, supporting the South Vietnamese, but as far as most Americans were concerned, "war" hadn't broken out. Dengler survived the crash, was captured by Laotians, and held in what he and his fellow captives believed to be a Viet Cong camp. By the time Dengler arrived, some of the handful of Americans and Vietnamese interred there had been detained for more than two years already.
The bombing of Laos was considered "black ops" -- top secret -- so the hopes of rescue were slim to nonexistent, despite the certainty of one of the delusional American prisoners (Eugene, played by an even-more-skeletal-than-usual Jeremy Davies) that war would never come, that secret peace talks would prevail, and that a real war would never happen.
"Rescue Dawn" follows the generic conventions you would expect in a P.O.W. and prison-escape movie, but that's the story, isn't it? The reason I was skeptical at first was because the film seemed to be skimming over the horrors of torture and abuse the prisoners suffered. Dieter (a splendid Christian Bale) is suspended upside-down with a tree branch and what appears to be an insect nest (ants? caterpillars?) tied to his chest -- and yet no crawlers emerge from it to swarm over his body, which seems to be the whole point of this atrocious procedure. (I'm still wondering if this is a final print -- perhaps the creatures are yet to be added digitally.) Several times, men talk of defecating in their pants, yet there are no visible moisture stains. Why gloss over these details?
Two things, I think, make the movie work: 1) the detailed performances by lead actors Bale, Davies and Steve Zahn (as Duane, physically the weakest of the detainees -- or, if you prefer, "enemy combatants"); and 2) the fact that Herzog stays, closely and intently, with Dieter for the entire movie. There's no relief from life in the jungle prison camp. As one character says, "The jungle is the prison"; we know only what these guys know.
As an ultra-priviledged white, middle-class American just barely too young to have been eligible for the draft during the Vietnam era (I entered college in 1975), and who has never served in the military, I can never know what Dengler and many other P.O.W.s went through; I can only imagine through movies like this one. Like most people I know, I have the feeling I wouldn't have lasted a day. What I found most extraordinary about this movie, and Bale's performance, is the burning light in Dieter's eyes -- a kind of relish for living (and flying), and rapid-fire appraisal and acceptance of whatever befalls him. He's able to incorporate any turn of events in an instant, and then make his next move. He gets angry, he gets discouraged, he gets hungry, but he never gets depressed. I don't know quite how else to describe it, but his appetite for life is such that he seems ready to find an opportunity for fun in any given moment. If anyone can survive dire and hopeless situations like these, it's people like Dieter.
"Rescue Dawn" begins with actual helicopter footage of bombing raids over the jungles of Indochina. The slow-mo effect is (as you would expect from Herzog) mesmerizingly beautiful and horrific at the same time, in a way that recalls his amazing aerial images of the burning Kuwaiti oil wells in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War in "Lessons of Darkness" -- in which Herzog envisioned the hellish scarring of the earth as an atrocity committed against the planet itself.
Nobody will be surprised to learn that Herzog, whose passionate sympathies are unequivocally with the imprisoned men here, refuses to let Dieter's story be opportunistically exploited for jingoistic propaganda. When a man with a microphone prompts the rescued Dieter to say that his love of god and country are what saw him through his ordeal, he replies: "I'd love a steak." God bless him.
P.S. In case I didn't make it clear enough, a quote from the description in the Toronto catalog by Noah Cowan, which I just read:
The clarity [of the film's approach] is a blessing. It allows a ruminative viewer to quickly intuit Herzog's motives for making the film at this historical moment -- though it's not that tough to do the math. After all, Dengler is captured during a "secret war" waged to extract America from a quagmire abroad. He encounters brutal hostility from the Laotion guards and villagers he encounters. And he is tortured, contrary to the Geneva Convention. Sound familiar?
I am a huge Werner Herzog fan and i really liked "Little Dieter Needs to Fly".And I think that Christian Bale, if given the chance, can be an amazing actor.
I can't wait to see this movie.
Having not yet seen "Rescue Dawn" (though very much looking forward to it), I should probably defer to your and Cowan's interpretation. But, respectfully, I'd be hesitant to ascribe so straightforward a political motivation to Herzog. Not just because his own politics are rather to the right of many of his admirers--he's the only major artist I can think of, for instance, who made an anti-Sandanista film in the '80s. Hell, even "Grizzly Man" found the time to throw in a swipe at unions.
More important, I think such a stance is altogether too reactive for an artist as willful and individualist as Herzog. His dogged efforts to renew his vision of the world, and to trust what he then sees, however terminal, has a political dimension, of course; but it's wholly on Herzog's terms. The sci-fi slant of the narration notwithstanding, "Lessons of Darkness" starts off a relatively forthright, and thus politcally useful, indictment of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. By the end, though, after the plumes of flame and majestic towers of smoke and firefighters shimmering against the orange and black roar, what group could use the film to promote their cause; what cause is being endorsed? To reframe Cowan’s conjecture, what motives did Herzog have to make “Little Dieter Needs to Fly“ in 1997? I’m sure he’d say it interested him and needed to be told; an answer rife with political implications, but hardly partisan sloganeering.
Needless to say, should my eventual viewing of “Rescue Dawn� make these objections seem ridiculous, I will apologize for these presumptions. The important thing is that the film sounds fantastic, not that it adheres to my image of its director.
Over the last half year I've become a total Herzog addict.
I must admit he was one of these directors I've known about all my life but for some strange reason never been very interested in.
Until I saw "Fata Morgana" and suddenly became hooked and started collecting everything I could get my hands on. Including the doc "Little Dieter needs to fly" which (though quite convential for Herzog) was one of the most harrowing & haunting movies about war/pow's that I've ever seen (and it HAS a few scenes that are very, very effective and hard-hitting). So...I'm very anxious about how he handles this movie adaptation.
By the way: from your description I assume the slow motion bombing footage is the same he used in the documentary (there with classical music) to incredible surreal effect. The same effect he achieved in "Lessons of darkess"
Good point, Bruce: I don't want to guess at Herzog's personal or professional motives, and I didn't mean to imply that I think the political parallels are the main reasons for the film to exist. They're definitely there, they're subtext, but as I mentioned, one of the film's strengths is that it's purely Dieter's subjective experience. I think Cowan overstates the case a bit, but I'm glad he made it explicit.
My god! Look at all of these amazing films you get to see.
Herzog has continued to be one of my favorite directors. I watched just yesterday Woyzceck. I think that's how they spell it. And to say that Herzog doesn't have political agendas - well, all you have to do is look at his library and you can see he does.
I saw this movie about a month ago at the TIFF, and was absolutely blown away.
This movie is everything I expected (another great performance from Bale, as well as a brilliant Herzog movie) and more. Herzog stated in interviews prior to this film's premiere that Bale is the finest actor working today, and if I hadn't thought so before, I would have been totally won over.
His Dieter isn't broadly developed through long dialogue passages (most of the dialogue belongs to Davies and Zahn, I think), but through actions- everything he does, from demanding a mosquito-net sleeping bag and a secret pocket for his passport sewn into his boots, we understand exactly who Dieter is.
This movie was described by one critic as a companion piece to Little Dieter Needs to Fly, and I'd believe it, were it not for the fact that I have not yet seen, yet own, the doc.
All in all, this movie was the highlight of the festival, and ranks as the best movie about vietnam ever made.
Whats up with the review for this movie over at rottentomatoes.com? They have it listed as a 'rotten' review, when clearly the review is positive.
I too am looking forward to this movie. I saw the trailer once and couldn't believe it. I am familiar with this story for a different reason. I have worn Eugene's name on my wrist for about 30 years. I have his POW/MIA bracelet. I knew he never made it home and had been a confirmed POW. Over the years I researched his story. I have been trying to contact the powers that be for this movie to share my story to no avail. It looks like I'll have to see it at my local cinemaplex like everyone else.
I have just reached the (possibly preposterous conclusion that all Werner Herzog films can be released to a 3-line formula. Exposition of of said formula can be found at:
http:/drowninginvitriol.blogspot.com/2009/03/three-line-formula-for-all-werner.html