"I'm in love with my animal friends. I'm in love with my animal friends! In love with my animal friends. I'm very, very troubled. It's very emotional. It's probably not cool even looking like this. I'm so in love with them, and they're so f-ed over, which so sucks."
Werner Herzog has documented some of the most unique people our world has to offer:For example, Russians who pray and ring ceremonial bells to their city at the bottom of a lake. Or a film on Klaus Kinski,his frequent collaborator and one of the most colorful actors in all of cinema, a former POW who turned down Raiders of The Lost Ark because the "script is as moronically shitty as so many other flicks of its ilk.". It's clear Herzog gravitates towards the people who are not afraid to live on the fringes, and his 2005 documentary "Grizzly Man" is no exception.
"Grizzly Man" consists of mainly compiled footage from Timothy Treadwell's summer at Katmai National Park in Alaska. Treadwell filmed himself living among the coastal grizzly bears, something he had been doing for 13 years with no harm. What Herzog managaes to do so well, considering his eccentric subjects, is know when to stay out of the way. We had a few up to date interviews with park rangers, former friends, etc etc. For the most part, however, we are left at the mercy of a skilled amateur filmmaker(Treadwell). Many of the scenes are well composed,and capture the beauty of Katami National Park,and the wildlife that roams within it. I forgot where I heard it, but someone once remarked to me that a piece of art gave them "an erection of the heart", if you will. This film is full of these kind of moments.
It's also full of uncomfortable,heartbreaking intimacy from Treadwell. This is almost to be expected, given the fact that the man has a camera,and has not had much human contact in his life. He speaks of his difficulties in finding love, in getting his mission taken seriously, and of finding complete happiness. He speaks about all of these things with a bright vigor, a hope that they will be conquered, that you cannot help but warm up to. All this makes his impending doom, a doom that you the viewer are well aware has to come at some point, that more abrupt.
There is little doubt that Timothy Treadwell was gifted with animals. He spent an incredible 35,000 hours, spanning 13 years, living with the bears in Katmai National Park, without any mistakes before his death.. His hubris shows in the film at one moment, as he screams "Try to do what I do! You'll die!.") Treadwells reasons for living with the bears may seem altruistic as a whole, but it is clear he is susceptible to the same egoism that drives many of us. It's ultimately this egoism that got him killed, along with his girlfriend.
There's a certain insanity in the life that Treadwell led. It's hard not to gawk, cringe, and admire it, simulatenously. To be that committed to something is astounding. Well, not really astounding. We are all desperate to give our entire beings away to something. Treadwell was genuinely committed to protecting these bears, and he sacrificed connections with human beings to satisfy this pledge. It is that kind of unsexy, petty giving away of ones self that I found touching. His fatal flaw,of course, was that the bears never noticed. Nature is largely indifferent to us. The bears could not provide the warmth of human reciprocity, so in my ultimate estimation, Timothy Treadwell failed. Maybe Treadwell knew his chats with the bears were falling upon deaf ears,and he persisted with no expectation of love in return. I disagree. I don't believe it's possible for a human to exhibit that kind of selfless love,and most reconcile with this fact. I'll take the meager despair,the meager feelings of inadequacy, the meager feeling that massive bits of one self are impossible to communicate to another human, and the meager,unfettered fleeting moments of joy that only human interaction can bring. Call me homely, or cliche & safe, but holding onto one another seems to be what it all comes down to. And it's a much tougher task than we imagine. Treadwell made a name for himself living with his head inside the lion's mouth. As the film ended, I just found myself thinking how lonely it must have been in there.
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