Where the Green Ants Dream (Herzog, 1984): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.45pm
This film, part of the Werner Herzog season at the BFI Southbank, also screens at the cinema on July 7th. You can find the details here.
Little White Lies review:
One of Herzog's lesser known fiction titles, the Australia-set Where The Green Ants Dream
examines the diversity (and absurdity) of spiritual custom through the
misted-up prism of light comic satire. A small cadre of Aboriginal
tribespeople assemble on an area of parched desert in order to forcibly
stymie the activities of a mining firm wanting to plunder the earth for
minerals. These people have nothing, yet they will risk their lives so
as no-one disturbs the dreams of the mythical, magnetic green ants, for
it could place a horrible curse on future generations. Though the film
is initially interested in lambasting corporate toadying, presenting the
head of the mining firm bending over backwards to appease the
cantankerous Aborigines, the film reveals itself as something bigger and
more complex as it ruminates on the divisions in cultural attitudes
that can never really be bridged and the poetic, often illogical schemes
that people concoct inside their own minds to make life worth living.
David Jenkins
Jenkins has picked his best ten Herzog movies for Little White Lies. You can read the article here.
Here is the trailer.
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