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  Average Rating for The Wild Blue Yonder [2005] - 4 out of 5

  
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• The Wild Blue Yonder [2005]

  Ed Howard 25 January 2008

  

  Werner Herzog's "Wild Blue Yonder" repurposes footage from some of the most extreme and obscure places on Earth into a hybrid of documentary and sci-fi narrative. Brad Dourif plays an alien traveler who's been stranded on our planet, and who is increasingly bitter over his failure to establish himself on Earth. He's also nostalgic for his home planet, a watery world where the people used to live in cities constructed beneath an icy atmosphere. The bulk of the film consists of Dourif's stories, in voiceover, about this planet, while Herzog's images purport to show the journey of some Earth astronauts to explore the world being described by the alien. Of course, the images are really no such thing -- they include footage from space shuttle missions and, when the spaceship supposedly arrives at the distant galaxy, some stunning underwater footage taken beneath the ice floes of Antarctica. Herzog's film thus takes imagery of the Earth itself and makes it alien, highlighting the strange and wondrous quality of our planet by pretending that it is an alien world. The footage Herzog includes from Antarctica is some of the most stunning imagery imaginable, and it does feel like the camera is exploring a truly foreign space, floating in the ethereal blue light of this underwater kingdom. These images are accompanied by an equally otherworldly score, performed by an ensemble Herzog assembled himself: an avant-garde cellist, an African vocalist, and an Italian religious choir. This oddball combination creates some hauntingly gorgeous music, a perfect complement to the unsettling beauty of the pictures. This is a transcendent film experience.

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Using NASA imaging and stunning underwater photography, director Werner Herzog directs this cautionary sci-fi fantasy, a personal plea to protect our planet's resources. A group of astronauts circle the planet, unable to return to a now uninhabitable Earth. Growing ever more desperate, the astronauts dispatch a probe, Galileo, in the slim hope of finding a suitable haven somewhere in the galaxy. Meanwhile on Earth, aliens from another planet, The Wild Blue Yonder, have for some time been trying to establish a community, so far without success. Having escaped their dying planet, the aliens soon find that Earth is rapidly heading towards the same fate. One of the aliens (Brad Dourif) narrates through words and images the futile attempts made by humans to find a new planet to inhabit, and focusses attention on the need to preserve the Earth's natural resources.

Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play. THE WILD BLUE YONDER is the story of astronauts lost in space, the secret Roswell object re-examined and BRAD DOURIF as alien, telling us all about his home planet -the Wild Blue Yonder- where the atmosphere is composed of liquid helium and the sky frozen. Using unique, beautiful, and unseen footage,with access to the five astronauts responsible for the Galileo-mission, and with haunting specially composed music, Herzog has created a spectacular vision of imagery, sound, music and human emotion, all part of his science-fantasy. Extras: Requiem in Space, 26 min. film showing how Herzog devised the music for The Wild Blue Yonder.