Heart of Glass (Herzog, 1976): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.30pm
This film is part of the Werner Herzog season at BFI Southbank and is also being screened on January 19th. Full details here.
Time out review:
It's hard to imagine that anyone other than Herzog would have wanted to make a film like Heart of Glass. It returns to the formal and conceptual extremism of his work before Kaspar Hauser:
almost the entire cast are performing under hypnosis throughout, and
the plot unfolds in increasingly oblique fragments, making it Herzog's
most stylised film to date. It's certainly extremely bizarre, but by no
means unapproachable. The tale it tells is plainly allegorical: a glass
factory declines into bankruptcy when its owner dies without divulging
the formula for its special ruby glass, and the village that depended on
the factory for employment goes down with it. But one doesn't have much
chance to mull over the implications during the film itself: Herzog
directs attention squarely at the performances (which are almost
agonisingly intense) and at the imagery (which is very beautiful in a
German Gothic way). Any film that dares to hover so close to sheer
absurdity needs - and deserves - a sympathetic audience.
Tony Rayns
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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