Werner Herzog's THE WHITE DIAMOND

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In the simple, yet engaging The White Diamond, one of three Werner Herzog documentaries released in the U.S. this year, the German filmmaker explores yet another eccentric personality: British aeronautics expert Dr. Graham Dorrington. While Dorrington would be considered the epitome of sanity if compared to Timothy Treadwell, Herzog’s subject from Grizzly Man, his past also bares a few haunts that drive him toward his current obsession -- which is to navigate the Amazon canopy that exists around Kaieteur Falls in Guyana, S. America in his newly invented helium-filled airship. As expected, Herzog initially provides us with a few notes on airships that were once known as "Zeppelins" (based on the name of the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin). These gigantic balloon-shaped objects were popular mechanisms for travel, and even war, in the early 1900’s, but after the Hindenberg disaster in 1937, they were more or less discontinued. And then it’s learned that Dorrington not only lost a few fingers in a childhood accident (preventing him to fulfill his dream of becoming an astronaut), but his dear friend was killed a few years back when he attempted to test a similar airship. However, once we move from London to Guyana, Herzog finds much more that suits his interest, making one discern that perhaps Dorrington just didn’t turn out to be as "interesting" as the filmmaker expected. Nevertheless, after a few early mishaps (one involving Herzog’s persistence to be with the inventor in his first flight), the mission goes through. Herzog picks up a local Rastafarian in between, the one who named the airship "The White Diamond," to poetically philosophize about the surrounding milieu, which is breathtaking to say the least. And it’s captured magnificently with some imaginative shots, the last of whom features a horde of birds flying around a secret which Herzog rightfully chose to withhold.

Grade: B
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*THE WHITE DIAMOND premiered around the festival circuit late last year. The film received a limited theatrical run in the U.S., and is now available on DVD.