AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Red-Barracuda Last Words is a short film a young Werner Herzog shot and edited in three days, while he worked on his first feature film. Filmed in black and white this is a very early example of the pseudo-documentary with a format that takes the form of the talking heads style. In all honesty, when it began I wasn't too sure if it was fiction or fact, which sort of ties in with Herzog's later approach to film-making, where he never fully recognised the dividing line between documentary and fiction meaning that his documentaries often wilfully included fictional elements and the fiction movies often included documentary realism and non-actors. It has to be said though that Last Words increasingly reveals itself as an absurdist piece, with characters spouting dialogue repetitively for reasons that frankly eluded me. Whatever the case, this is the story of a man who is saved from a Greek island which once was host to a leper colony. He was the last survivor and now lives on the mainland working as a musician in a bar, while refusing to speak to anyone (although ironically he goes to great lengths to tell us that he is going to say nothing).In fairness, this one is virtually plot-less. The short running time means that it is always going to be no more than a snap-shot of something rather than a fully-fledged story. It does have to be said though that, with its focus on a possibly insane outsider living on the fringes of society, this is a subject that Herzog would return to again and again throughout his career. So this is a very interesting early example of one of his major interests. While it has to be said that this is understandably a fairly limited film, it does have some interesting imagery, especially the scenes shot in the ghost town on the island. It also has some very lively musical interludes showcasing traditional Greek folk music played vigorously on lyre and bouzouki. So, while this one ultimately is pretty slight, it is interestingly bizarre enough to ensure it is pretty compelling for a short film.

MisterWhiplash Already at the age of 25 or 26, at the same time as he was crafting his first film as a writer and director, Werner Herzog had a firm grip on how his worldview could be represented on film: absurd, sad, apocalyptic to a degree, but also full of the repetition of poetry (or the poetry of repetition, you pick), plus a story that is both insane and funny and delightful. Also, musical interludes that are lively, soulful and grab your attention.This is just a 12 minute film, but in it we get the story of a man who was the last one on an island that had been plagued by lepers. At least, that's as far as I can figure out. The information we get is in pseud-documentary (this is probably when that was only getting started so I'm sure Herzog was ahead of the curve on that), and people being 'interviewed' repeat their responses. Why do they do this? I think it can come down to sounding almost like a prayer in information form, like we are discovering this story as a call of confusion and anguish and even indifference (which is perfectly ironic for a prayer). Or it's simply that having people repeat things puts one in a kind of trance (Herzog loved himself, maybe still does, hypnosis as can be seen in Heart of Glass and Invincible), and it may be as much or more for the actors than for the audience. These people don't seem to be 'actors' in the professional sense; he likely found these people on the island or by the coastline - certainly the musicians, who seem so authentic as to not be from anywhere else - and it lends everything a sense of 'huh, so... what's the deal with these people, and the lepers, and why is this guy describing that lepers have a "distinct sex life?" It's all mad and off-kilter and maybe unsettling. It's a fully- formed artist at a young age knocking something off quickly while doing his first big work. What a man!

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) And it's in Greek. Werner Herzog was in his mid-20s when she shot this 13-minute black-and-white short film. Basically it is about a man (a leper) living on an island on his own and we hear people living on another island talking about him. They judge him, insult him etc, so this is a perfect example of negative badmouthing. He seems to be in harmony and yet they have to interfere with him. First verbally, then physically. Yes he has an illness and he has gone insane apparently, but he does not aim for a cure. So why not let him be? The interesting thing is also that his illness is highly contagious, but only if people interfere with him. Yeah well.. that's me trying to make sense of this short film. It could be a statement for solitude and harmony and against general conventions. I'm not too sure though if that was Herzog's intention. Or if he even had any. It's difficult to interpret this film and also the details. For example why were the people repeating themselves constantly? Maybe because Herzog wanted to show that they actually have no substance in their statements, nothing really to say? And why do some of them not repeat themselves. Anyway, if you have seen other early works by the director, you will know that these are still pretty odd and completely different to most of his later works. Admittedly, I wasn't really impressed watching this one. Thus, the low rating. But it does not take away any of my admiration for Werner Herzog and I hope he will still be with us a long time and make lots of films. Oh and finally, don't mistake "Letzte Worte" for a documentary. This is all scripted.

Nestor-13 The short is shot in B&W and is a very surreal film. Set on a greek island this short doesnt have a plot but rather follows like a documentary the tragik story of an old man who withdraws himself of the life on the island. It is told by the residents of the Island. In their Interviews they repeat their sentences over and over again. The Island is probably the last place in the world, its people are the last and the old man is the last of them...Quiet melancholy but dam good!