MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

nmlal68 First of all I have to say that I love Werner Herzog's work. He has directed in my opinion some of the best movies and documentary films in old and recent times.There is no doubt that his beautiful camera pace and skills are not missing in "The White Diamond". You see it's a Werner Herzog's film, his passion for wild life in particular and Nature in general is always present, his interest for human drama and condition not being forgotten.The problem is the dispersion from the main theme, which seems to be often neglected and in some cases even sliding into second plan. In other words, while Herzog promises to tell you the story of "The White Diamond", you have the impression that this is not the story he really wants to tell you anymore as if he sudden got bored or disappointed, taking refuge in some other jungle stories. One could speculate about the reasons for this behavior, one being the relationship with the White Diamond's pilot, which seems to be somehow stressed. Another reason could perhaps be that it was not in its due time acknowledged, the central plot not being dense or exciting enough to fill the whole documentary. In fact, when the film supposedly reaches its climax, you have more the sensation of a 'downer', like if everybody is just more than happy that the whole experiment is over so they can pack and go home. There is not a smooth flow of events. The plot seems to get stuck at every corner a little bit like a puzzle, with the pieces not really fitting.Nevertheless, Herzog is Herzog. If you are a fan, you will surely find some strong reasons to see this film.

mstomaso Once again, the most adventurous documentary film maker of our time returns to his most beloved subjects and his most beloved setting. The White Diamond is about an obsessed man who wants to conquer a relatively unexplored frontier in the South American rain forest. Yet this is no sequel or remake of the amazing Herzog film Aguirre. Rather, in The White Diamond, Herzog returns to his beloved rain forest to tell the story of Dr. Graham Dorrington's struggle to build and fly an ultra-light helium airship as a way to explore the resources and ecology of the South American rain forest canopy.Unlike many of Herzog's recent films, The White Diamond has an irrepressibly upbeat tone, as Herzog seems - as he can seemingly only do in South America - to celebrate the simultaneous absurdity and brilliance of the human spirit. Like Little Dieter, Fitzcarraldo, Rescue Dawn and Kaspar Hauser, The White Diamond is about remarkable people who do remarkable things. And like almost all of Herzog's portfolio, the photography and soundtrack are magnificent.Herzog appears quite often in this film, and, as he has done frequently in recent times, gives us a bit more of a view of his interior world. Unlike Grizzly Man, however, this is not the dark, constrained hostility of the great director's view of life, but rather the hopeful Herzog who is interested in what makes people tick. And, unlike many of his films, he seems to like what he sees this time.The White Diamond occasionally tangentializes away from the main story to talk to us about things that inspire the local inhabitants of the rain forest where the story takes place. A mysterious cave is explored, but the mystery is preserved in deference to the wishes of a local tribe. The poet philosopher of Dorrington's team is a local Rastafarian herbalist who finds tranquility and joy in everything, but whose rooster is his major inspiration. And then there are Herzog and Dorrington themselves, who are a whole different story. Some of Dorrington's incessant commentary can be a little annoying, but I believe Herzog left it in the film to give us a clear sense of the man himself - for which I can not fault the director.Literally and spiritually uplifting, The White Diamond is a truly lovely film which uses setting and story to create a lasting impression. Like most of Herzog's films, it bears intense, wide-awake, and repeated scrutiny, and is worth thinking about afterward.

kinojunkie Werner Herzog's work is some of the most incredible material ever contributed to the history of cinema and I consider this film to be amongst the finest of the roughly 35 films of his I've seen. This documentary about a man obsessed (of course) with his project of building a large air- balloon to explore the canopy of the jungle is handled in a style that feels like Werner has it down to a clockwork. A passionate, refined, beautiful clockwork that is. It's amazing how poetic and lyrical the images in this film are and all of Herzog's ranting about finding an "ecstatic truth" really comes full swing here. The film isn't so much about the man - or the balloon. It's the film as a whole that is somehow magically able to reflect the bigger questions about the world and our place in it. It's amazing that this shot-on-video minimalist film with a somewhat sloppy narrative is so powerful. Better than Grizzly Man, Wheel of Time and Little Dieter. Wow.

steeptrails This documentary is filled with beautiful scenery and some delightful music, and lots of tedious technical information about the history of airships, but it ultimately fails because of a lack of focus; Herzog just couldn't seem to decide on the subject of his documentary. With the opening footage we're led to believe it's about airships, but then we're taken to the laboratory of Dr Dorrington who gives us an animated, and technically interesting, description of his wind tunnel and the effects of boundary layers on laminar air flow over airships. At the end of the laboratory tour we hear Herzog's voice somewhere off stage asking Dr Dorrington to tell us about what happened to his hand. We see the hand, missing two fingers, and then Dorrington begins to tell us about his youth and his interest in rockets and how he could have lost his life but instead lost the two fingers. And then we're transported to South America. Well, we eventually get to see the beautiful scenery in the rain forest and we hear about the ghosts of Dorrington's past but we never understand just what it was that's been documented here. It could have been shortened by 30 minutes and made into an interesting film. But it's definitely worth sitting through to see the (all too brief) footage of the Cliff Dance, accompanied by Sric Spitzer's and Lisa Stern's beautiful music, as well as their second song played over the end credits. But the film as a whole just doesn't work.