Grizzly Man

I'm trying to decide whether GRIZZLY MAN is a very good movie or a downright brilliant one.

The photography alone is very good; Herzog's calling our attention to the photography is brilliant. The insights into Timothy Treadwell are very good; Herzog's editing of Treadwell's soliloquoys is brilliant. The film's balancing on the thin line between fascination and morbid voyeurism is very good; Herzog's occasional steps across the line are brilliant.

GRIZZLY MAN is a collaboration between Herzog and a dead man, a dead man who left hundreds of hours of (mostly self-shot) footage behind. Timothy Treadwell, Herzog's collaborator and the titular Grizzly Man, is disturbed, sympathetic, angry, profoundly innocent, and absolutely in love with Nature. Treadwell's the kind of guy who would've loved MARCH OF THE PENGUINS. He anthropomorphizes bears, foxes, even Alaska, seeming to believe that if he just loves them enough, they'll love him back. But bears are bears and nature doesn't love him back. It's a lesson Herzog understands but Treadwell may never have learned.

GRIZZLY MAN'S power comes from the juxtaposition of Treadwell's innocence, Herzog's wisdom, and the stupendous beauty of Alaska and the grizzlies Treadwell was foolish enough to try to befriend. Because Treadwell was a fool, he shot footage of these bears unlike anything I've ever seen. He got right up next to them. He talked to them, scolded them, even swam with them. He seemed to make something of a pet of a local fox. He lived his dream, right up until he (and his apprehensive girlfriend) died in a grizzly's hungry maw. Amazingly, Treadwell's camera was running (lens cap on) at the time of his death, and Herzog shot some oblique footage of himself listening to the couple's final minutes. In the end, Herzog doesn't share those minutes with us. Instead, he advises the keeper of the tape to destroy it, as it's simply to horrible to own. It's better to remember Treadwell as he was: innocent, foolish, and enveloped in beauty.

And it's that beauty I'll remember long after I've forgotten Treadwell's name. Thank you for a brilliant movie, gentlemen.