LO AND BEHOLD, REVERIES OF THE CONNECTED WORLD – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

To watch Werner Herzog’s LO AND BEHOLD, REVERIES OF THE CONNECTED WORLD is to in itself become lost in a reverie of your own. Herzog’s way of creating the full sweep of emotions of the existing internet is fascinating in fact, but dreamlike in rhythm. The strength of the film is that it plays like a wild, but self-contained dream completely aware of the fact that it is based on an almost infinite and ever expanding topic. There’s beauty in that too. The internet is ubiquitous as to almost alleviate the point in crafting a documentary about its origins, its future, and it’s ultimate effect on humankind, but that doesn’t stop Herzog from trying and succeeding to show us the many faces that the history and effect of the internet have to offer.

The method in how he does so is what makes this a pristine work of documentary filmmaking. Herzog has split the film into ten categories, which in some ways could seem to limit. The internet, as a topic, is ever expanding, and therefore shouldn’t actually lend itself well to any type of structure, and Herzog wisely only uses these categories as bookmarks to direct the narrative that he’s telling, while using the characters and the editing of each section to invoke that ever expanding nature. This creates a documentary that layers the humble, funny origins of the beginning of the internet with the pain of those attacked through it, then to those who have become addicted. These compelling, intellectual narratives combined with a few of Herzog’s own philosophical flourishes give Lo and Behold the ability to cover the entirety of the internet within the span of 98 minutes, which is a triumph anyway you look at it.

Herzog’s direction of the film comes with additional benefits. The dreamlike nature of the editing wouldn’t work without Herzog’s seemingly carefully crafted, yet go for broke cinematography and aesthetic. His use of Wagner’s Das Rheingold during the description of the first thing ever done through the internet suggests a burdening danger, yet incalculable beauty. Combined with what might be the most awe-inspiring interview footage of the film, the song almost seems to symbolize the beginning of the modern world as we know it, hardships and all which deliriously sets us up for the wave of optimism, but also epic cataclysm we are in for. Herzog’s not only interested in the internet of now, his interest also lies in the future of the medium and how it in some ways could lift us higher than we’ve ever been, but also destroy us. As Lo and Behold expands through this direction it only continues to become more and more sublime.

Werner Herzog is the last person one could expect to make a film about the internet, but the first person one could expect to easily dissect the number of perspectives it brings up. Herzog has crafted a documentary for the modern age, that is consistently layered and enthralling.

5 of 5 Stars

LO AND BEHOLD, REVERIES OF THE CONNECTED WORLD is currently playing in ST. Louis exclusively at Landmark’s The Tivoli Theater