Film Reviews
By Nathaniel Bell

Welcome To The Jungle

“Rescue Dawn”, the latest piece of fevered poetry from director Werner Herzog, is both a gripping prisoner-of-war film and a grueling, ultimately triumphant homage to the human being’s indomitable will to survive. In the capable hands of a visionary filmmaker, it also becomes something more furtive and mysterious: an image of Christ-like love. 

Following Herzog’s excellent 1998 documentary “Little Dieter Needs to Fly,” the film relates the narrative history of Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale, adding another entry to his catalog of vibrant characterizations), the German-American Navy pilot who was shot down over the Laotian jungle in 1966. Though he survived the crash, Dengler was soon captured by guerrillas and held prisoner in a remote jungle camp with several other detainees. After several agonizing months of confinement, the half-starved prisoners (among them the loony Gene, played by a freakishly skinny Jeremy Davies) managed a hairpin escape, fleeing into the neighboring forest at the height of the deadly monsoon season. Dengler and his wounded companion, Duane (wide-eyed Steve Zahn), forged bravely ahead for days on end, but fate seemed to have its own designs on them.  

The real Dieter Dengler was a beguilingly quirky individual. Raised in poverty in a bomb-ravaged Germany, he emigrated to the U.S. and joined the military not for political reasons, but out of an intense longing to fly. (This spiritual need for “flight” is explored in two other Herzog documentaries, “The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner” and “The White Diamond.”) In “Rescue Dawn,” Dieter’s courage in the face of doom alludes to an inscrutable peace quite beyond himself. Even after undergoing excruciating torture at the hands of his captors, there isn’t a trace of malice in his heart. (There is a touching, beautifully understated scene in which Dieter, finally freed, graciously pardons a guard who was kind to him.) 

Though the scenes in which the group of prisoners meticulously plans their breakout are a stirring tribute to human handiwork, it’s the concluding passages that have the most abiding impact. The care with which Dieter attends to the ailing Duane and the horrifying moment when they are suddenly separated elevate “Rescue Dawn” above the majority of war films. Viewers who can recall the delirious power of films like “Aguirre: The Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo” will appreciate the brief, hallucinatory scene involving Dieter, Duane, and a piece of tattered shoe leather that indicates Herzog has lost none of his trademark surrealism. 

Though essentially a crowd-pleaser, “Rescue Dawn” is nevertheless full of clever touches wired to challenge conventional taste. Long passages are permitted to unfold without recourse to dialogue or music, allowing the visuals to make their own kind of statement. Some scenes are devoted solely to establishing the atmosphere of the camp, which is itself an important character. Herzog’s patient attention to detail pays off; when the violence comes (accompanied by discreet use of slow-motion), it’s startling and cathartic in a way most Hollywood action films are not.

Send me your opinions at nbell@netlistings.com