The Circuit

Thom Powers, doc programmer for Toronto, has been collecting fest picks from various industry people for his blog, including Matt Dentler, Anthony Kaufman, and Agnes Varnum.  One doc on most everyone’s list – Werner Herzog’s “Encounters at the End of the World.”  Herzog readily admits that he sees little difference between his docs and his fiction features. “Rescue Dawn” is Herzog’s fiction adaptation of his own doc about Vietnam POW Dieter Dengler in “Little Dieter Needs to Fly.” Years before he directed Christian Bale running through the Vietamese jungle, he “directed” Dieter running through the jungle, trying to get the Veitnam vet to relive his war experience by chasing him with the camera. In his other docs, namely “Grizzly Man” and his Klaus Kinski tribute “My Best Fiend”, Herzog’s subjects are dead, but the great German director still works to direct the image and narrative through extensive, personalized voice-overs. Most of "Grizzly Man" is video that a lonely and socially awkward grizzly bear activist shot of himself, and we need Herzog's voice to bring us back from dismissing him. In the process, as with his perspectives on Kinski's death threats in "Fiend", Herzog makes it clear this is his movie, and his story. It’s the polar opposite of the Fredrick Wiseman approach; almost a different genre of filmmaking entirely. (Mike Jones)