• © Werner Herzog Film / Deutsche Kinemathek
  • © Werner Herzog Film / Deutsche Kinemathek

Lessons of Darkness

(Lektionen in Finsternis)

  • In Person

Perhaps only someone as extreme as Herzog could have envisioned making a film about this event as if it were being seen by a traveler from another world witnessing the destruction of ours. His tragic worldview has at last found its triumphant visual and aural expression.

Amos Vogel, Film Comment

Alien environments are not unfamiliar to Herzog, and in the Kuwait oil fields in the aftermath of the Gulf War, he finds another apocalyptic locale for the haunting Lessons of Darkness. The film is, in his words, “a poetic vision of the new landscapes which have emerged in Kuwait.” Filming just a week before the last oil fire was put out, Herzog’s team captures the grotesque beauty of a desert storm of fire, smoke, and spewing oil brought on by war’s destruction. Utilizing aerial photography and music from such composers as Mahler, Prokofiev, and Wagner, Herzog takes us on a mesmerizing tour of “Satan’s National Park.”

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Werner Herzog
Cinematographer
  • Paul Berriff
Language
  • German
  • English
  • Arabic
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 53 mins
Source
  • American Genre Film Archive

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