Review of Wheel of Time (2003) by Allen G — 25 Jun 2013

It isn't Herzog's most interesting work- it's unusually subdued in its nature and really not as interesting as it should be- visually it wasn't as exciting as I had hoped and Herzog's approach was far too spectator and not enough innovator. Nonetheless, Herzog knows how to pick a topic worth looking at and here we have another- it takes the typical documentary approach (again, unusual for Herzog) and it should satisfy anyone with interest on the topic but if, like me, you were watching it specifically for Herzog's contributions then you might not find it as exciting.

I watched this one at a rather bad time in that Ashin Wirathu is currently spouting hate speech in the name of Buddhism and is likely responsible for a lot of violence in Burmese at the moment so it's hard for me, who is staunchly opposed to all religion (yes, even Jainism) to really engage with this Buddhism-based work. I'm not actively marking it down for that since it's no fault of the film that I'm not overly-interested in the topic but it does explain my lack of enthusiasm for it somewhat.

I rarely just straight-out copy what a critic says but Herzog rarely gives us a straightforward documentary like he has here so in this case I shall do:

"Wheel of Time lacks the intensity of many of Herzog's works, and the meditative nature of the monks is a strange match for the wildness of Herzog.".

Yeah, what he said.