Purely Joyful Movie!

Not even bad in a good way

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

The geologist Lance Hackett is employed by an Australian mining company to map the subsoil of a desert area covered with ant hills prior to a possible uranium extraction. His work is impeded by some aborigines who explain that this is the place where the green ants dream.Werner Herzog makes great films, and he is quite prolific in what he does. His career sees to be divided between unusual drama and documentaries of different cultures. This film, perhaps more than any other of his work, really blends the two. While not a documentary, it really tries to celebrate aborigine culture.Of all the films based in Australia, this is one of the better ones. It may not be reality, but it is in some ways better than reality. Herzog creates a world that is completely believable.

Where the Green Ants Dream- at the least featuring one of Werner Herzog's best titled films as it's one of those amazing visuals one gets out of the strangest of the director's work- is placed in a somewhat minor cannon of the German maverick's work, and maybe rightfully so. It's about a controversial topic, that of the rights of the Aborigines and the Australian's seeming right via original British Imperial rule, and it features practically all non-professional actors and some shaky transitions between its sturdy plot and non-sequiters and quintessential Herzogian landscapes. If I were recommending Herzog films to a friend this wouldn't be at the top of the crop (unless of course one is fervently into Australian issue movies or love that one song from the 80s "Beds are Burning"). But it's by no means an over-ambitious quagmire like Heart of Glass, and at worst it's occasionally dull or, and I hate to say this for Herzog, too eccentric for its own good.It's not to say some of Herzog's bits of character eccentricities aren't out of place. There's featured here amid the story of an aboriginal tribe peacefully protesting and standing their ground against construction on a sacred land of the title name various strange bits of business. My favorite was that mid-section involving the Aborigines asking for a plane, assumed on the part of the construction group as part of the negotiations, and features in one of the oddest parts of the movie the one black pilot from the Aussie air force who keeps singing "My baby does the hanky-panky" to himself. And there's some cool visuals of stock tornado footage and those barren wastelands and perplexing dunes and pyramid-hills in the desert plains that provide the director some choice locations to film. It's hard not to see for the Herzog fan some allotment of poetry.But there are some problems that I couldn't quite ignore. Despite the acting force of Bruce Spence, who displays far more here as a gifted actor (contrary to what another IMDb reviewer said) and as more than just the kooky flier in the Mad Max movies, the acting is in general fairly weak and at best standard and too off-kilter. It's fairly distracting when Herzog can't quite corral his actors as well as with his technical skills; this also despite some real 'presence' with the two aboriginal chiefs. And certain big scenes, like the courtroom, aren't as effective as might have been intended and come off as dry and too naturalistic and stuffy.And yet, even with these qualms, it's got some real courage and conviction with its message, which is that aside from the typical "respect the native culture" beat is that people need to learn to live together and not have cultures lost and squandered in the face of bigotry and imperialistic attitudes that should have been squashed decades ago. It's a very good, if not great, examination of a meeting of two societies and an identification of "the other" by a filmmaker willing to take it on. 7.5/10

I also remember this film as life-changing. I saw it at the TIFF many years ago and was baffled by it. There is a small scene in an elevator that I remember as a transcendent cinematic moment. Like so many of Herzog's films, it is deeply moving for reasons that aren't easy to put your finger on - often with Herzog it's an odd juxtaposition, an awkward silence, a strange edit, an inappropriate flash of humour or horror that produce a flash of insight. This film, at the time, seemed conventional by Herzog's standards, but I still left the theatre feeling slightly drugged, always a good sign.

The words uneven and messy can not do this film justice. This has to be by far Herzog's worst film to date. I really went looking for this film and I now regret every minute I wasted trying to find it. Before I go to my real analysis, I have to say I am a pretty big Herzog fan but this film is a humongous disappointment.I have to say it started out on the right foot in begins with obscure footage of tornadoes and then moves on to a man in the Outback playing his digderidoo while the camera scans over an almost alien landscape. A very Herzogian way to begin the film. The biggest complaint is the acting. This is by far some of the worst acting I have ever, ever seen in a feature film. It is truly terrible. Even the leads were bad. Bruce Spence should probably never work in film again. The dialog is awful and completely insipid. It tries to be thought provoking but falls flat on its' face. The plot really makes absolutely no sense and they never try to explain it. The film tries to be powerful but winds being the classic "oppressed minority versus white majority" story that I could have watched on cable. Although I really cannot say anything bad about the cinematography, I was disappointed in the lack of apparitions that usually appear in Herzog's films. It is not very exciting. There is absolutely no insight to the characters. At the end, the film tries to bring back some of Stroszek's magic but winds looking like a desperate attempt to usher something in worthwhile so the audience will not felt they have been cheated by watching this debacle. The ending with more tornado footage serves as a very regurgitated message of the film. The classical music is also used very out of place.