Review of Into the Abyss (2011) by Sebastian D — 27 Sep 2014

I think part of the way this film works so successfully is by mirroring our own prurience. I am not claiming any exemption. The film is mesmeric. We can rationalise our interest as intellectual, as an appreciation of great film making, cinematography, etc, and it does stimulate on all of those levels, but in the end we are culture vultures looking at the celluloid remnants of real corpses.

Herzog is largely forthright, compassionate and unsentimental- the sadness of lives lost get to echo and sound for themselves.