It has been said that when the boogeyman goes to bed at night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris. Well, I bet that when Chuck Norris goes to bed at night, he checks his closet for Werner Herzog, the legendary director who, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Wim Wenders, was one of the leading figureheads of the 1970s’ New German Cinema movement. His films include art-house favourites like his five films with actor Klaus Kinski (notably Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, and Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht) and, more recently, 2005’s Grizzly Man and last summer’s Rescue Dawn.

Herzog’s work is matched in fame by Herzog’s reputation for…well, being superhuman. Fitzcarraldo is notorious for the fact that Herzog actually had his South American extras haul a real steamship over a real hill. When he made Even Dwarves Started Small, he put his cast through such hardship that, during the wrap party, he actually threw himself into a cactus (“Getting out of the cactus patch was much harder than diving in”). He filmed the documentary La Soufriere at the base of a volcano that was about to erupt. When he lost a bet with Errol Morris, he actually boiled and ate his shoe.

Recently, Herzog made headlines for pulling Jaoquin Phoenix out of his overturned car (advice to drivers: if you get in a car accident, it’s best to do it in front of Werner Herzog’s house), and also for being shot in the pelvis during an interview. The bullet hit a small book in his pocket, and Herzog said, bleeding through his boxers, “I am not afraid. It was not a significant bullet.” (If you need proof: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3866926922083543140&q=herzog+interview+sniper&total=2&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1). The man’s awesomeness clearly knows no bounds.

The Camera Media Bar and Gallery is currently playing a festival of some of his lesser-known works. The Camera is a combination movie theatre/café beneath the offices of Mongrel Media, and is the type of very arty place that one might expect to see in a Woody Allen film. It feels chic, tasteful, and very exclusive, and I understand that Atom Egoyan was involved in its inception…so why is it at Ossington and Queen instead of Yorkville? It’s really quite a miserable area of town, within close proximity to the mental institution, and a disproportionately high number of the surrounding stores are boarded up, covered with graffiti, or both. An odd place for Toronto’s artiest theatre.

Upon my arrival, I was disappointed to find that the first film of the evening would be Land of Silence and Darkness, Herzog’s 1971 documentary about the deaf and blind. It’s a respectable enough film, with scenes that definitely linger in the memory, but it’s also very, very slow. Not ‘hypnotic,’ as Herzog is famous for, just boring. And worst of all, I had seen it only seven months earlier. Take it from me – this film is a chore to get through once. Twice in the span of a year is something I don’t think they would resort to in Guantanamo Bay.

Okay, so I guess it’s clear that I don’t much care for Land of Silence and Darkness, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad. As many critics have pointed out, it is one of Herzog’s most human, compassionate films. By showing long (long) shots of the blind and deaf deriving simple pleasure from vibrations, water, leaves, and, most of all, human contact, Herzog asks his audience for some simple brotherly love.

The second film, Fata Morgana, should be considered a must-see by anyone who thought that something like Fitzcarraldo was too commercial. It has been called a documentary, but probably just because nobody has thought of a more appropriate genre for it to belong to.

I would have enjoyed Fata Morgana more if I weren’t so fidgety from watching Land of Silence and Darkness for a second time, but on the whole, I found it an interesting diversion. The title Fata Morgana literally means “mirage,” it is comprised of footage of the Sahara, particularly mirages. In the opening scene, we see about ten different airplanes land on a runway, and as the haze and fog accumulates, it looks more and more like a flying saucer. The rest of the film is random images and ideas, a bit like a Werner Herzog sketchbook, and your tolerance for it will depend on your tolerance for Herzog. Towards the end, Herzog attacks the middle class by contrasting the Saharan natives with two middle-aged amateur musicians, playing a dreary song on a stage decorated with kitschy ‘party’ material.

Browsing through the rest of the Camera’s Herzog program, there’s nothing that I would recommend to anyone unfamiliar with Herzog’s work. I would suggest watching Rescue Dawn and Grizzly Man, then working your way through the Kinski collaborations, and maybe Little Dieter Needs to Fly. If, however, you’re familiar with Germany’s most bizarre and outrageous auteur, this festival of footnotes and curios will give a unique perspective into the breadth and richness of Herzog’s body of work. But please: no more Land of Silence and Darkness for at least another decade.

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The Camera’s Herzog retrospective continues next week:

For a once-in-a-lifetime picture of Werner Herzog, Michael Moore, and Terry Gilliam: http://www.imdb.com/gallery/granitz/1664/Events/1664/MichaelMoo_Arun_591144_400.jpg.html?path=pgallery&path_key=Herzog,%20Werner