GRIZZLY MAN (2005)

GRIZZLY MAN is an interesting documentary (directed by Werner Herzog) about a man named Timothy Treadwell.  The thing that makes the film so interesting is that Timothy (along with girlfriend Amie Huguenard) died in a bear attack in 2003 and the film is mainly made up of footage that Timothy himself filmed while living in extremely close proximity with bears for months on end (mostly alone) for 13 years!  That's right, each summer for over a decade Timothy would go to the Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska and camp out in the wild with nothing but his supplies and (in the last 5 years) some video equipment.  Anyway, according to Werner, Timothy compiled over 100 hours of film and GRIZZLY MAN is the end result of stuff taken from Timothy's movies and interviews that Werner conducted with people involved with Timothy's life and death.

I liked GRIZZLY MAN and found the whole thing very haunting.  Timothy's films (along with the Don Edwards song "Coyotes") are far and away the highlight of the movie and while they are simultaneously startling and shocking in how just how close the misguided Timothy lived with these animals, they are also endlessly fascinating in what they capture.

As far as a documentary goes, GRIZZLY MAN succeeds in entertaining the audience, but I wasn't totally satisfied with the movie.  Timothy's footage and the music were fantastic, but the interviews were not very good.  I liked the one with the pilot who found Timothy's body, but the other ones were pretty weak and I didn't care for the almost staged looking scenes about Tim's wristwatch and the one with Werner listening to the audio of Timothy and Amie's death.  And don't even get me started with the coroner scenes!  What was with that guy?!

Overall, Timothy comes off looking like an immature man-child who probably did more damage to the animals than he did good by making them become more accustomed to humans, but it's still sad that he and Amie died so young and in such a horrible way.

I'm curious if any of the animals that Timothy became "friendly" with ever missed him or thought of him after he was gone? I bet that one fox, Timmy, did. Timothy even said, while petting Timmy on the head, that he and Timmy had been friends for over a decade. Poor Timmy. He never got another head scratching ever again.

INNOCENCE UNPROTECTED (1968)

From what I can tell (if the story is true) is that back in the 1960's, Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev took portions of the unreleased 1941 film INNOCENCE UNPROTECTED (written, starring, produced and directed by strongman/escape artist Dragoljub Aleksic) and cobbled them together with present day interviews with the cast and WWII newsreel footage!  He released the results as INNOCENCE UNPROTECTED (1968).  What a bizarre thing to do, but yet somehow it all comes together beautifully and the end results create a kind of roller coaster effect on the viewer.  One moment you're watching an almost campy 1941 melodrama and then the very next second you are looking at dust covered victims stumbling out of rubble or maybe the actors from the original movie (now 20+ years older) talking about their lives.

This is my third Dusan Makavejev film and so far I only have the utmost respect for his work.  Each film that I've seen (MAN IS NOT A BIRD, LOVE AFFAIR; OR THE CASE OF THE MISSING SWITCHBOARD OPERATOR and now this one) has been unique and totally captivating.  In this film I was really curious about the main guy, Dragoljub Aleksic.  He seemed to be such a fascinating person that I wish there was a full-length documentary just about him!  The vintage footage of him doing all kinds of insane tricks are cool, but then they cut to him 20+ years later and he's still doing them!!!  This guy must have lived a ridiculous life.  Based on the crowds at his earlier performances he appears to have been fairly popular, but then you see him living in a small rundown house (all alone?), clinging to his past glory and it's kind of depressing.  Life truly is strange and fragile.

Recommended for sure.