Synopsis
Early short by Werner Herzog shot while being on location in Greece shooting "Lebenszeichen".
Last Words
1968 ‘Letzte Worte’ Directed by Werner Herzog
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Kinda weirdly annoying and clever at the same time. Stories and phrases are repeated over and over before people get a chance to say anything else, giving a blackly-funny slant on those local legends you hear in your own community again and again because the storyteller doesn't think that rumours actually spread in such a small space. Turns out, they do indeed spread, but no one listens, because they're too busy repeating themselves.
Gives a better impression of a community in 12 minutes than it ever potentially could have in 120.
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You'll forgive the inherent auteurism when I say this sees an early emergence of Herzog's notion of the "ecstatic truth": the way he seems to prod the eccentrics that espouse nonsense to his camera constitutes both a bizarre divergence from the verisimilitude of the documentary format and, somehow, in the way they speak rather than the words they say, the reality of their lives. It's very strange, and strangely confident in itself too. And blimey does it look good.
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Lots of strange characters saying strange things. The reptetition in the dialogue was interesting and not all too annoying, and some of what the people were saying was actually quite engaging. I'm intrigued as to how Herzog will apply the aspects he's established in his first three shorts into his debut feature.
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Herzog’s self potency is on full shine here. Egotistical barrage of repetition in hopes it’ll eventually mean something if you say it enough times. If anything it goes to completely ruin the gorgeous landscapes on show, which it seems, in his earliest shorts, he has a keen eye for. Such self-importance, it’s hard to focus on what he’s attempting to prove.
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Another short film from Werner Herzog, it has an interesting plot, some really fantastic cinematography of Crete and a weird convention of repeated dialogue, which does nothing but annoy. Also, the lyre could be the single worst sounding instrument in music, and I'm Scottish and we have bagpipes. Enjoyable effort though.
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Werner Herzog made this cryptic short, in which musical performances are interrupted by people repeating inscrutable lines of dialogue, during the Greek shoot of his feature debut Signs of Life. The motivation, he said, was to capture a kind of beginner-filmmaker's innocence in his work before he became too professional, although given that he went straight on to make the extremely freeform Fata Morgana afterwards it's not clear what he lost. This isn't going to be anyone's favourite Herzog short, but it's beautifully composed and photographed, and it has a mystery all of its own.
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Another extremely early Herzog short film, this one is a documentary about a man who refuses to tell anyone anything.
I think it may have been too late in the evening when I watched this, I certainly fell asleep during the short film I watched afterwards so I was definitely approaching my limit. This documentary is weird. I don't quite get what Herzog was going for here. Then again this could simply be him beginning to experiment with the documentary format. It is extremely early in his career and years before he really started producing documentaries.
The fifteen minute film take us to a small village in Crete where there resides a man who refuses to say anything to anyone.…
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The man who would not talk,the island of lepers,the fun repetition of language the great performance of traditional music,all adds up to another great Herzog capture.
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Loved the music and the way the film was shot. I assume the people repeating the same phrases to camera was to make points about mythologising/gossip, perhaps documentary form and storytelling itslef, but the film is too short to explore this in a meaningful way. Very interesting though.
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Again, this wasn’t bad but felt like quite a slog, at only 13 minutes, that’s quite impressive! It’s beautifully shot though.
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Original Title: Letzte Worte
Year of Release: 1968
Genres: Short; Documentary
Director: Werner Herzog
Writer: Werner Herzog
Main Cast: Lefteris Daskalakis, Antonis PapadakisFascinating little short film, though not as clever as I hoped it would be. Still very nice to see the beauties of Greece and listening to the delightful lyre players.
ENJOYMENT: 5
BORINGNESS: 6PARENTAL GUIDANCE
Violence & Gore: 0
Sex & Nudity: 0
Drugs & Profanity: 0
Intensity & Horror: 0