Werner Herzog
Grizzly Man

In this society that is now adrift, as we know, roles have reversed compared to the common thinking of the late '60s. The people who should govern us and be a model of reference turn out to be bastards, evil, and almost all dishonest (politicians, judges, lawyers, executives, etc.). The fools and "strange" people are to be considered heroes to idolize and examples of wisdom (see Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, C. Bukowski, Carmelo Bene, and hundreds of others...).

It is thus, for example, that we arrive at Timothy Treadwell, a half-psychopathic young Californian who isolates himself for a good 13 years (from 1990 to 2003) in a national park in Alaska to live with, care for, and protect the Grizzly bears from poachers and forest forces.

"Armed" only with a camera, in perfect solitude, he produces almost 100 hours of film to video-document his creed, his philosophy of an environmentalist, convinced of his "being an indispensable friend" to these furry pachyderms who, as the sad ending teaches us, couldn't care less about him.

So much so that in October 2003, he (and his girlfriend) are devoured by one of these supposedly cute and defenseless bears.

One hundred hours of self-celebratory footage (with him speaking to the camera, with moments of the daily lives of the bears in the background) were found by the German director Werner Herzog, who edited, cut, and remixed them (the original footage mostly consists of testimonies from relatives and friends of the fool Timothy) to provide us with 90 minutes of a docu-film that is at times interesting but mostly boring and redundant.

It is immediately clear that this Treadwell is unhinged, believing himself to be an invincible avenger of the bear cause... and very likely he believes himself to be a "bear" as well (indeed, if I'm not mistaken, he even admits it at one point). A documentary that, while telling us about the ethical and animalist spirit in contrast to human violence, ultimately over-celebrates the actions of a person with delusions of grandeur and a great desire for revenge on the world , unable to reintegrate into society, unable (probably) to love someone and, not least, unable to create a "healthy" relationship between these bears and humans, characterized by a necessary detachment also respecting their respective territories. In 5000 years, the indigenous Canadian populations haven't succeeded, and now this young idealistic Californian comes along and "bam".... Mister Ghepensimi has arrived!

In summary: a nice and smooth film for more than half an hour, but afterwards....too long and dispersive.