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

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Red-Barracuda This fascinating documentary is not really about a madman. It's about two madmen. While it's quite obvious from the outset that Klaus Kinski is a nutcase, it becomes more and more apparent that Werner Herzog himself is a pretty crazed character as well. For anyone who has seen Aguirre, the Wrath of God or Fitzcarraldo this will come as no surprise, seeing as those two movies were pretty crazy undertakings to begin with. Travelling down the Amazon on primitive rafts and dragging steamboats over hills are not the sort of activities carried out by normal film makers. Repeatedly making films with Kinski was perhaps an even less sane idea but Herzog made five features with this most demented actor. The films themselves are completely engrossing and unique. This documentary is likewise.Having read Kinski's autobiography 'Kinski Uncut' I was under no illusions of what I was going to encounter here. The book is a quite extraordinary account. Surely there has never been a star autobiography quite like this one? Full of aggression, madness and pornographic detail of his sexual exploits, this was the work of a deranged individual. Kinski didn't really focus on his film career, he concentrated much more on his sexual liaisons and was not shy at hurling insults around at famous people. For instance, he declined a role offered to him from Federico Fellini because the money was not good enough, he dismissed Fellini with the words 'Go and have yourself f---ed in the ass!'. I couldn't imagine Tom Hanks saying this to Steven Spielberg to be perfectly honest. In the book too, Kinski continually makes clear his severe dislike for Herzog. In My Best Fiend, Herzog suggests that both men worked on the insults together in order to make the book more sensational. I do have to wonder to the legitimacy of this claim, as it does seem strange. From what I have seen Kinski needed no assistance in coming up with insults to hurl at anyone, least of all Werner Herzog.So, similar to Kinski's book, the account given by Herzog in this documentary is a highly subjective one. You really can never be sure the true extent of the truth, and you never will be. But My Best Fiend is a terrific film whatever the case. Herzog is incapable of being boring and he does capture the essence of the relationship between these two striking individuals very well. There are a number of other people interviewed too, who worked with these men on these films and this adds a great deal to the story. While there is some fantastic footage of Kinski to appreciate, from the pure unhinged insanity of his Jesus Christ Savior performance, to his intense ranting over a minor food-based complaint on the set of Fitzcarraldo, to the extraordinary gentleness of his interaction with a butterfly.This film is a rarity in that it is one that can just as easily be enjoyed even if you have no knowledge of the films made by the two principal characters. Both men are just too unorthodox and the relationship so fraught that the story of their relationship is enough in itself. For fans of the movies themselves, this is of course, an absolute must.

RainDogJr It's not a long time since I watched for the very first a Werner Herzog film. Actually that happened during this same month (when I watched Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht). Right now I have seen four of the five films that Herzog and Klaus Kinski made as together as director and actor (Cobra Verde is the only one still to watch but I have it already on DVD) so it was time to finally watch My Best Fiend. Is obvious that now I'm totally into the work of Herzog, this documentary is a must see for any fan of the work of Herzog and of the acting of Kinski. It is not a masterwork however the subject is more than interesting. I remember that the first time I watched a performance of Kinski was in the film Les Fruits de la Passion. By then I didn't know who was Kinski and I haven't watched that film again (I have it on VHS and right now I don't have a video tape recorder available) but I do remember it a little. I have it as part of a box of erotic classics and it does have many sex scenes, quite explicit. Later I saw Kinski in For A Few Dollars More, a film that I loved and Kinski is great in it however it was until this month when, as I said, finally I watched a Herzog film and with that I quickly remember Les Fruits de la Passion. Basically I never forgot that Sergio Leone film but with Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht and Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes I began my true admiration for Kinski.The films of the team Herzog/Kinski are more than great, extremely interesting and all of the ones I have seen with a magnificent Kinski. My Best Fiend is a documentary indicated just for persons who loved those films for obvious reasons. And it doesn't shows who was Kinski apart of what Herzog lived with him but he lived a lot of things, interesting things. We watch Herzog visiting those places where Kinski made that another grey hair appeared in Herzog's head. And Herzog begins in Munich where he shared house with Kinski (I didn't know that Kinski was 16 years older than Herzog), where he knew Kinski, his temperament. The footage of the making of the films is really interesting. Kinski was crazy, simply. I remember that recently when I talked with my cousin about the Herzog/Kinski films I said "I read that Kinski was crazy" and he said "but why?" I said something like "well he shot someone of the crew" "well for sure that's a type of madness" said my cousin. I'm mentioning this because I read many stuff of Kinski mainly in the Internet before watching this film and most of the quotes of Herzog come from this film. Of course Herzog not only visited the places but also meet with some of the cast and crew who worked with him and Kinski. Is unique because we watch Herzog speaking Spanish, of course German and narrating in English. We also see two actresses, the one of Woyzeck (they visited the place where they filmed Woyzeck) and the one of Fitzcarraldo. Eva Mattes won in Cannes but Kinski doesn't and is very funny to hear Herzog saying that Kinski said something like "I don't need awards, I know I'm a genius", it is true. It is interesting enough to easily say that it was absolutely worth watching. Of course Herzog was the sane and Kinski the madman when they were together but Herzog was also crazy, he has other type of craziness. Many unforgettable images but one of my favourites is when they meet again after some years I think in Colorado. Is all happiness and with that I guess many of the ones who knew both could think something like "who can understand these two? " There's also footage of a fight between Kinski and a producer, I think, and is a fight apparently for food. Watch how Kinski respected Herzog. I respect both for those four films that I loved and I hope soon I can say I love the five films of the Herzog/Kinski team. This was just the second documentary of Herzog that I watched, the other was Grizzly Man and for me that film is a masterwork. This one should be watched once you have watched some of those mentioned five films.

ElijahCSkuggs A documentary of the tumultuous relationship between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski may sound like a boring, foreign look into the past, for those unaware of such names, but nothing could be further from the truth.No the film is not exciting, nor is it eye-opening. The film doesn't bring to light what many of us all already know about Herzog or Kinski, but regardless of its shortcomings, My Best Fiend is still a great movie about a friendship that saw ups and plenty of downs.Director Herzog is a genius; actor Kinski is one as well. Their relationship is one of hate and love, respect and tolerance. The movies they made were acts of attrition, physically, emotionally, and occasionally financially.Through Herzog's delicate tracings of their career together, it was clear that behind the death threats, the yelling, the arguing, and the disdain, both men had an amazing affinity for one another.Kinski was the catalyst for such a partnership, as his mad style of acting and living seemed to make life dangerous and interesting all at the same time.I am amazed Kinski was never honored with a nomination for an Oscar. He must be one of the best character actors in history. Though I'm sure he believed himself to be the best, and would naturally scoff at any awards thrown his way.Great study on a pair of friends whose love/hate created some of cinema's finest works.

MisterWhiplash My Best Fiend, a take on the working relationship and history between filmmaker Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski (by Herzog himself), puts on the facade of a documentary as Herzog interviews some of the participants- actors and at least one crew member- in the productions of the films (Aguirre, Woyzek, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo, and Cobra Verde, only the first and third seen by me). But it's less that than a kind of confessional from Herzog, a collection of anecdotes, horror stories, and in general psychologically breaking through the general perceptions regarding their collaborations as actor and director. Part of that perception, of course, is totally correct. Herzog, always a filmmaker wanting the utmost control of his stories about madmen obsessed with goals that seemed impossible or in subject matter that was marked as dark and disturbing as possible (without being too graphic), had to contend with his own kind of 'character' in the form of Kinski, who could be a little frightened being scared of a wasp one moment, and the next acting like someone killed his child when in reality the coffee was lukewarm.Kinski, in most of the footage that is put forth in this film- even the footage that is basically taken right out of the Herzog works themselves- add to the profile of what this man might be. It's alternately funny and unnerving to see the one big outburst of his anger at a production manager on the set of one of the films, when as Herzog says 'compared to his other outbursts this was mild'. Equally jarring is seeing him doing some kind of Jesus-play or a weird sermon at the start of My Best Fiend, where he comes off like he's half a rock-star and half certifiable. But at the same time a little of the footage, along with some of the anecdotes, also give him the light of something of a schizophrenic, who on the one hand could be extremely demanding and ultimately ego-maniacal if not at the center of attention, and on the other could be the most professional actor this side of a Howard Hawkes picture. Interesting too is seeing the two interviewees who have the best things to say about Kinski- his female co-stars from Woczek and Fitzcarraldo. Maybe there's something of Kinski being the prototypical male as opposed to just being an escaped anger management patient. He's described as being sweet and kind and very polite to his co-stars of the opposite sex. But with the male ones, who knows.The testimonials from Herzog build to something quite fascinating, not just as a subjective profile of an actor and a quasi-friend (err, fiend); it's also a movie about Herzog too, about how he sort of found out more about himself from having to tame the beast, so to speak. The near legendary story of Herzog threatening murder and suicide if Kinski walked off Aguirre, for example, perhaps showed to his star not exactly that his own director was as nuts as him, but that he took what he was doing just as seriously, if not more so, than he on a professional level. There's even an easy-going scene (the only one with both of the men speaking in English) where they seem most down to earth about why they work together so often. If there is anything that might be lacking from all of this it's that we get to see so much of certain sides of a few of their productions, while Nosferatu and Cobra Verde are either left out altogether or just mentioned in brief towards the end. There's also an unnecessary scene where Herzog is reminiscing over a gallery of photos of Kinski and himself. And the balance between telling one side or the other of the actor's persona seems to not always be shifted totally in proportion; by the end we almost want to see more and find out more than has been presented.But what is in My Best Fiend is pretty close to priceless for die-hard fans of the director and actor, and as one who's getting more into the filmmaker's career (and finding Kinski to be Germany's much more crazy answer to Al Pacino- an actor with the intensity and passion and skill of twenty actors all in the eyes and mannerisms), it's a very good work to also be seen by people who have not even seen one of the five films by the director and star. It's a very bizarre, very on-edge, but ultimately fruitful collaboration that now has made for a kind of mix of expose, memorial, and elongated denouement. And it also is very funny as well.