Fata Morgana

The result of long wanderings of more than three years on the African continent, Fata Morgana accounts for the complex relationship that Werner Herzog maintains with the world and more precisely with its origins. Divided into three parts, carried by a story in voice-over, drawing on Indian literature and partially written by the filmmaker, the film is traversed by contradictory sentiments towards the impressions perceived during this voyage. The long panoramic tracking shots espouse the landscape, aiming to draw mirages that show a nature that is at once poetic and utopic. If the scenes, punctuated with Leonard Cohen’s folk music, allowing waste of all kinds to enter the frame, take a melancholic turn as to the doomed fate of the Earth, it is because Herzog seeks “a decent place for humans”. So there remains this proposal of an exalting trip with an ecological feel, fighting fiercely for the preservation of pristine nature towards and against everything. 

Tom Bidou