Heart of Glass

Today I decided to skip Hogwarts and watch Werner Herzog's, Heart of Glass (1976). I really needed to detox from Telfar's fashion parties last night—will post my cellphone pix and the Solomon/Dustin fight video as soon as I figure out how to get them off my phone and onto my Mac. Heart of Glass takes place in a small 18th century village somewhere in the Kingdom of Bavaria. This film has some awesome nature scenes—to give the feeling of a pre-industrial landscape yet unharmed by man. The main character, Hais—a prophet cowherder and allegorical Hamlet—tells his village of their impending doom—which is meant to symbolize our own apocalyptic downfall through globalization. Everything he predicts comes true. The small village's economy is supported by a glass factory which specializes in making beautiful ruby red glass. When the owner dies and takes with him to the grave the formula for the red ruby glass, the village starts to fall to chaos. One of the raddest things that Herzog does is he hipmotizes the cast and all the actors look and act like zombies. This is one of his best films. So far I've seen Stroszek and Lessons of Darkness (which is like watching sci-fi of post Desert Storm buring oil fields). My friend Christophe Chemin (K48#6: Nomos) turned me onto this genius filmakers work. If you don't know it... check it out! He's latest film is Grizzly Man, 2005.