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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 29 JANUARY 2017 38 This Week When the legendary German di- rector Werner Herzog releases a movie, you had best sit up and pay attention. I apologise if that comes across as bossy and categorical, but the fact is that in a long and distinguished career that spans both feature films and documen- taries, Herzog has created a rich and sustained filmography whose commitment to exploring the human experience is sometimes shocking, sometimes awe-inspir- ing but never, ever cynical. From his incendiary collabora- tions with the mad, bad and dan- gerous to know German actor Klaus Kinski – whose tumultuous but ultimately loving working re- lationship was recounted in the doc My Best Fiend and which yielded such Herzog masterpieces as Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo as well as the direc- tor's unique take on Nosferatu – down to his more TV-friendly but no less probing recent works, Herzog has managed to survive with his integrity intact in an ever- changing, and ever-compromised, film industry. Now, the filmmaker who has blurred the lines between fact and fiction in his features work and who has explored such heady sub- jects as the fate of Vietnam POWs (Little Dieter Needs to Fly), death row inmates (Into the Abyss) and mentally unstable and bear-loving national park squatters (Grizzly Man), Herzog applies his distinc- tive gimlet-eyes and trademark voiceover drawl to what is argu- ably the defining technological phenomenon of our time: the in- ternet. But though the documentary be- gins in very much a conventional mode – with one of the web's al- leged founders, Leonard Klein- rock, enthusiastically guiding us through some of the rooms and machinery that enabled the inter- net as we know it to come to life in the 1960s – Herzog's distinctive touch soon surfaces to the core to paint something that's less purely informative and more disquieting. As is typical for Herzog, 'Lo and Behold' is also a meditation on man and nature, with the suppos- edly invisible mechanisms of the internet being revealed to have real life, physical consequences. There are moments of genuine heartbreak, as when Herzog visits two separate retreats: one of them dealing with internet addiction, the other providing a safe haven for those with medical compli- cations resulting from radiation – victims, in a sense, of our new- found and fathomless desire for interconnection. The 'dark side' of the internet – a chapter caption even marks it out as such – is given an even deeper shade during Herzog's interview with a grieving family who lost their daughter to a horrific car ac- cident, only to have photographs of her decapitated body repeat- edly emailed to them, malicious messages in tow. Barely suppress- ing her anger, the girl's mother – Herzog stages the family's in- terview like an odd but affecting wake, with the parents and the remaining children decked out in black and looking ahead from a kitchen table stacked with muffins – expresses her belief that the in- ternet is an evil spirit-entity snak- ing its way through everybody, in an ongoing quest for malevolent avatars to do its bidding. Paradoxically, however, Her- zog's documentary is also laced with a sense of the transcendent or, at the very least, a moral centre that gives a bruised but genuine uplift to the overall experience. Because Herzog doesn't go for the linear historical documen- tary route, instead treating the internet as yet another – diseased but splendid – crease from the crooked timber that is humanity, the film comes with an undeniable emotional potency. Herzog is also, of course, an ex- cellent documentary interview- er, one whose final edits don't smoothen out the creases of con- versation but instead linger on moments of hesitation, sadness and vulnerability. And towards the end of the film, he puts for- ward a delectable mind-bender for all of his interlocutors. "Does the internet dream of it- self?" Confronted by Herzog's gnomic missive, even Elon Musk – the 21st century's very own mad sci- entist supreme – is forced into a long, long pause. Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World is currently streaming on Netflix. It will also be screened at Spazju Kreattiv, St James Cavalier, Valletta on Feb- ruary 3 at 21:00 and February 25 at the Citadel Cinema, Victoria, Gozo at 17:30 IN CINEMAS TODAY Embassy Cinemas Valletta Tel. 21 227436, 21 245818 Sing (U) 10:35, 13:40, 16:00, 18:20, 20:45 xXx3: The Return of Xander Cage (12A) 10:25, 13:45, 16:10, 18:35, 21:00 Why Him? (15) 16:05, 18:30, 20:55 La La Land (12A) 10:00, 13:00, 15:45, 18:25, 21:10 Silence (12) 10:20, 14:00, 17:30, 20:45 Assassin's Creed (12A) 10:15, 13:30, 16:00, 18:25, 20:50 Eden Cinemas St Julian's Tel. 23 710400 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (12A) 13:00, 15:45, 18:25, 21:10, 23:50 La La Land (12A) 13:25, 16:00, 18:35, 21:10, 23:45 xXx: Return of Xander Cage (12A) 13:30, 16:05, 18:40, 21:15, 23:50 Passengers (12A) 13:40, 16:10, 18:40, 21:10, 23:40 Why Him? (15) 14:00, 16:20, 18:40, 21:00, 23:25 Sing (U) 14:00, 16:20, 18:40, 21:00, 23:25 Assassin's Creed (12A) 14:00, 16:20, 21:10, 23:35 Moana (PG) 14:00, 16:20, 18:40, 21:00, 23:25 Black Mud (TBA) 14:00, 18:35 Underworld: Blood Wars (15) 14:05, 16:15, 18:20, 20:30, 22:40 The Bye Bye Man (15) 14:15, 16:25, 18:35, 20:50, 23:00 Ballerina (U) 14:20, 16:25, 18:25 Hacksaw Ridge (15) 14:30, 17:40, 20:45, 23:35 The Unknown Girl (TBA) 16:10, 20:45 Assassin's Creed (12A) 18:40 Silence (12) 20:30 Empire Cinemas Bugibba Tel. 21 581787, 21 581909 z Why Him? (15) 11:15, 13:35, 16:05, 18:30, 20:50 Assassin's Creed (12A) 10:50,13:35,16:05, 18:30,21:00 La La Land (12A) 10:30, 13:15, 15:55, 18:35, 21:15 Sing (U) 10:40,13:35, 16:15, 18:35,20:55 xXx: Return of Xander Cage (12A) 11:00, 13:35, 16:10, 18:30, 21:00 Manchester by the Sea (15) 10:30, 13:15, 15:55, 18:35, 21:15 Hacksaw Ridge (15) 10:45,14:00, 18:00,20:55 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ THE WORLD WIDE WEB ★ ★ ★ ★ THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD ★ ★ ★ WIDE ENOUGH ★ ★ NARROWING OPTIONS ★ STRADA STRETTA FILM By Teodor Reljic LO AND BEHOLD, REVERIES OF THE CONNECTED WORLD (13+) ★ ★ ★ ★ Always one to seek the surreal in the everyday, legendary German director Werner Herzog turns his lens on the internet with Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World 'Does the internet dream of itself?' Pioneer: Leonard Kleinrock