Screened as part of NZIFF 2006

The Wild Blue Yonder 2005

Directed by Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog fashions a sci-fi fantasy of paradise lost around actor Brad Dourif, recutting amazing NASA footage and gorgeous submarine imagery. An unclassifiable oddity.

France / Germany / UK In English
81 minutes 35mm / Colour and B&W

Director, Screenplay

Photography

Tanja Koop
,
Henry Kaiser
,
the astronauts of STS-34
,
Klaus Scheurich

Editor

Joe Bini

Sound

Joe Crabb
,
Eric Spitzer

Music

Ernst Reijseger

With

Brad Dourif
,
Donald Williams
,
Ellen Baker
,
Franklin Chang-Diaz
,
Shannon Lucid
,
Michael McCulley

Festivals

Venice 2005

Elsewhere

No fan of Werner Herzog should miss this unclassifiable oddity. Amazing NASA footage and gorgeous submarine imagery is recut around the unlikely figure of actor Brad Dourif to construct a sci-fi fantasy of paradise lost.

“When Brad Dourif stares at the camera... and says, ‘I come from the outer reaches of Andromeda. I am an alien,’ you're inclined to believe him... Over ten numbered chapters, beginning with ‘1. Requiem For a Dying Planet’, Herzog relates the story of aliens who fled a planet far away in the wild blue yonder, hoping that Planet Earth would provide safe harbor... As Dourif, with great conviction and considerable humor, tells what happened, Herzog splices archived news sequences, interviews with scientists, NASA footage of astronauts on the Space Shuttle and some extraordinary film shot under what appears to be a polar ice-cap, to illustrate it... It's a triumphant mix of great imagination, hypnotic images and an extraordinarily haunting score.” — Ray Bennett, Hollywood Reporter