Long before the lyrical Koyannisqatsi (1982) hit the screens and hit the big time with global audiences, Werner Herzog went out his way - literally to the Sahara desert and Cameroon in Africa - to make his visual statement about humanity's insanity upon this planet.With tireless persistence and great personal danger to himself and his crew, Herzog amassed a bucket-load of exposed film at numerous locations in the above two areas throughout 1968 and 1969. Then he went back to his office somewhere and concocted a sci-fi 'story' about aliens who visit the planet to make a visual report about the state of our tired, ravaged space ship earth. Then he edited and cut all the film to match his story. All of this information is present in the Extras section of the DVD I obtained. Thematically, FM is definitely kindred to K, but more visceral and unsettling.With consummate, pervasive irony, Herzog ignites our eyes with the beauty and serenity of the earth, rivers, mountains, deserts etc but counterpoints - even destroys - our appreciation with the detritus, destruction and devastation wrought by contemporary humanity in the 20th century. Pretty, it is not. Implicitly, Herzog is damning humanity for its stupid, repetitive behavior that is progressively destroying the planet with our well-known technological trappings - and traps. It's a self-evident story, beautifully crafted and presented. And, yes, there is a visual story. Though, to help viewers along, Herzog divides the film into three acts: Creation, Paradise, and The Golden Age; and none of it showing - with exquisite dramatic or comedic satire - humanity as worthy of any of those sublime conditions. Much of the accompanying dialog is actually quoted from the Popul Vuh (which means 'community book' according to my Mayan expert) myth, of the ancient Quiche Maya, about the Mayan story of creation.Little wonder Herzog upset a lot of people when this delicious docudrama was released. There have been earlier films - Wild River (1960) comes to mind - that explored the social and environmental repercussions of untrammeled progress; more recently, Gasland (2010) has exposed the continuing folly of frenetic fracking in USA and other countries.Will humanity ever learn? Over forty years ago, Herzog issued a dire warning with this film. Too bad nobody took much notice except to denigrate it. See this story while you can - and let your ears rejoice in the music also. Nine out of ten. January 4, 2015

I read a review before entering the theater, and it said that the film made the reviewer wonder if he were losing his mind. The movie started, and the more I watched, the more I agreed, but maybe not for the same reasons. I found myself doubled up in giggling laughter many times, actually falling off my seat! There were minutes of footage of sand dunes and sand dunes and more sand dunes...and then, for no reason I could tell, a Leonard Cohen song would start up. Then more footage of the desert, maybe some verses out of the Koran..."In paradise, roasted pigeons fly into your open mouth"...more bleak footage, then another damn Leonard Cohen song that doesn't relate, then an interview with some German lizard collector wearing welding goggles, more footage with verses from the Koran, then yet another God damned Leonard Cohen song. I laughed myself breathless! The best thing that can be said is: The director got better with later movies.

It would be something to try and tell someone what Fata Morgana is very simply about. Or, maybe it isn't: Herzog goes to the Sahara desert and nearby villages to film assorted landscapes and the locals. But this is just the broadest stroke. It's a feat that you either surrender yourself to, or you don't. He gets into the form of the world around him entirely, without a story, bound only to certain aspects of written poetry, as his camera (shooting on supposedly discarded film stock) wanders like in a pure travelogue. One might even jump to that easy conclusion, as he puts up these immense landscapes, then moving to more rough civilized culture (though not the actual 'normal' culture itself), and to a point levels too abstract to be able to convey properly here. Sometimes it takes a while to get along, close to a purity through the "creation" section, but a purity in how parts are manipulated either by nature or by broken-down machines. Soon the narration, readings from the Popol Vuh (who, by the way, does the music for most of his films), with the gradual procession of actually highly stylized shots adds a whole different level to it. It's a hybrid film, and it's not easy, but the rewards are what best comes closest to Herzog's idea of "ecstatic truth", images he's been out for his whole career.One wonders if the images end up, by the time the second section, Paradise, leading along the words spoken, or if it's the other way around. You're eyes are moving along with the stills and pans, and the wording is close to being religious writing, but there's also the music choices, how the bizarrely spare singing and low-key classical music goes together with Leonard Cohen and Blind Faith. I think each side ends up complimenting the other, and it's something that still *seems* like it shouldn't work. Perhaps that's the draw to it, the chances taken in going through desolate wastelands and the smallest run sections of any kind of civilized life (in this case the shacks of the desert), that make it so fascinating. If only for the cinematographic sense it's a marvel, too indescribable for the casual photography fan because of molds of technique, and some of the strangest images of any Herzog film. There's pans, there's long-shots, there's hand-held while driving by the towns, there's a bus dozens of miles away that via mirage seems only a couple, there's full-on close-ups of fire and a man holding a reptile and talking about its radar (truly classic gonzo comedy), there's people holding still in fake poses, and a man and woman playing inane music. But, most importantly, it ends up feeling, at least for me, natural for the personal nature of the approach.I'm sure only Herzog would know for certain why he made this film, as opposed to the simple 'how'; he was already filming Even Dwarfs Started Small, and he ended up going through many perils to finish it. Yet this is what makes Fata Morgana such an amazing feat- it will appeal to one depending on what someone brings to it in actually watching it. It's definitely unsettling, but there's the temptation to want to see it again very soon after, just to experience all of the ideas and realities turned abstracted strange vibes (yes, the word 'vibes' applies here). It's one of the truly spectacular "art-films" ever made.

Fata Morgana is an absolute masterpiece. It's Werner Herzog's most unconventional film. It doesn't have a plot or story. Instead of a story, we're given a collection of images, words and music that work so wonderfully together. It's not a documentary either. Some of the people in this film are directed and given lines to read. It has some of the most beautiful and haunting images. Herzog shoots real mirages and we see cars and people floating around in the middle of the desert who aren't actually there but hundreds of miles away reflected like in a mirror. The use of music in this movie is so brilliant - from Leonard Cohen, Mozart, and the Third Ear Band. Imagine Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey in the desert; that's what this movie is like. This film is so hypnotic that it has the ability to make you feel as though your spirit has left your body. A must see. It will change the way you view films. Rating: 10 out of 10.