Grizzly Man -- Review

(Note: I've been fucking around lately and haven't watched any of the DVDs on my Spring Cleaning list. My bad. Hopefully I'll be able to check out Full Metal Jacket tonight or tomorrow night. As always, this note is more for me than it is for you, Dear Reader. I did however get a chance to see Grizzly Man, and was compelled to write a review.)

Had Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man been released when I was in high school, I probably would have watched it a hundred times. As it is, after watching it today, I immediately rewatched it. It's that good.

Grizzly Man is a documentary about Timothy Treadwell, a man who spent 13 consecutive summers in Alaska, amongst grizzly bears and with no protection, almost exclusively alone, until 2003 when he and his girlfriend were finally attacked and eaten. I used the word "finally" because I think anyone with some sense in their head would guess that, sooner or later, the guy was going to end up as bear fodder. But who's to say, really? We find out late in the film that the day Timothy and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, were eaten, they were all set to fly home when Timothy had an argument with an airport clerk and summarily decided they would return to the wilderness. Had they left that day, perhaps Timothy would be preparing for his 16th summer with the grizzlies in Alaska.

Werner Herzog certainly doesn't think so. At the start of the film, Herzog, who narrates throughout, says that he decided to tell Treadwell's story because he felt there was art in it. But that's all bullshit. While Timothy Treadwell was certainly a very unique character, it's obvious by the film's conclusion that Herzog's real point is that Tim Treadwell was an idiot, his death inevitable. While I don't exactly share his bleak, misanthropic outlook on the nature of the universe, one quote Herzog makes rang very true for me:

"And what haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food."

Look, no one in their right mind would choose to live with grizzly bears, which are probably the most ferocious, most dangerous animals on the planet. And certainly no one would choose to do so without any kind of protection. What's even more perplexing is that Treadwell's purpose in living with the grizzlies is never quite explained. He often says he is there to protect them (an Alaskan bear biologist explains that the grizzly population is very strong, by the way), but when some tourists are caught on film throwing rocks at a grizzly, all he can do is hide in the bushes and bemoan the atrocity in a whisper. Just what his purpose there was, and why he initially decided to live with the grizzlies each summer, is never fully explained. Perhaps only Tim Treadwell knew why.

Watching the documentary, we learn that Treadwell was once an alcoholic, that he nearly died of a drug-related overdose, and that, after moving to Hollywood, he tricked new acquaintances that he was Australian and spoke with a poor Australian accent (hey! just like Mel Gibson!). We also get the impression that he's a manic-depressive, and possibly a closeted homosexual. Watching him speak in front of the camera, it's very apparent that he's a few triangles short of a Triforce, and this is mostly what makes the film so engaging. My guess is that Treadwell never acknowledged even the tiniest possibility that a bear might eat him, because, if he did, he surely wouldn't have acted so weird on video. Almost everything he says is so out there, so ridiculous. Perhaps it's in poor taste to laugh at a dead man, but I think when that man was stupid enough to believe he was some kind of kindred spirit with the bears, that makes him fair game.

But Treadwell isn't the only one who is a riot. Herzog himself sounds like someone doing a bad German accent, even though he is actually German. How that is, I don't know, but watch the documentary and tell me I'm wrong. Also, the speeches by most of the interviewees, particularly the coroner, appear so scripted that I almost have a hard time buying that Herzog wasn't encouraging them to overact. A scene where Treadwell's ex, Jewel Palovak, is given the watch removed from Timothy's severed arm, or another where Treadwell's ashes are scattered in the Alaskan wild are so awkwardly funny that Herzog must have intended them to play that way, perhaps as a way for him to deride these people without openly calling them jackasses.

Maybe I'm immature, but I found the film, particularly Treadwell's bizarre elocutions and Herzog's narration, hilarious. But that's not all it is. At its core it's an interesting tale of one man's Quixotic quest to live with the grizzlies, and the tragic consequences that eventually followed. It's funny, but also quite haunting.

It's not a documentary, at least in the strictest sense, but it's nevertheless a film which I will revisit very, very often.

4/4*_*