Night four at the Virginia Film Festival was spent watching two films that showcase men grappling with the unforgiving natural world. The first, Ghost Elephants, is the latest documentary by the legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog. The second is Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams, about a man who, as time passes him by, chooses the woods over the modernizing world.
Ghost Elephants:
Over his long career, Werner Herzog has created a series of remarkable films about obsession. His earlier narrative works, such as Aguirre the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, and his superior remake of Nosferatu, are evidence of that consistent theme of men pushing beyond their limits. All three of the films mentioned starred his wicked muse, Klaus Kinski, or as Herzog would later refer to him, “my dearest fiend.”
In Aguirre, Kinski set out to find “the lost city of gold,” El Dorado. Fitzcarraldo finds him playing an opera lover who attempts to build an opera house in the jungle. Nosferatu showcases the vampire’s lust for blood.
In the latter portion of his career, he’s become better known for his mold-breaking documentaries. Herzog’s technique is unconventional. He doesn’t just document the stories of others in ways we might find typical, such as narration and interviewing; Herzog goes further. He takes part in their journey, editorializes, and sometimes goes on camera. His method is controversial with some documentarians, but it is hard to argue that Herzog’s methods have not served him, his films, and his subjects well.
Such documentaries include Encounters at the End of the World, Into the Inferno, and, most famously, Grizzly Man. In Encounters, Herzog details the scientists who have chosen to live in Antarctica in pursuit of scientific discovery. Into the Inferno follows a volcanologist as he studies active volcanoes and those who live near them. Grizzly Man collects the audio and video (giving them context) of a man who chose to live with bears and paid the ultimate price.
His non-fiction films share that common theme of obsession with his narrative works, and Ghost Elephants is no different. Herzog and his crew follow South African naturalist Steve Boyes as he searches through the Angolan wild for an undiscovered species of elephant.
Boyes has built his whole life around this quest, and you can see the weight of it in his eyes. Boyes isn’t quite crazy, but he is haunted. So much so that he’s not even sure that he wants to discover them; he wonders aloud if he might be better off if they remain dreams. He then states, with pain, that maybe all wildlife is destined to become dreams and memories.
Ghost Elephants is Herzog’s first film since signing a deal with National Geographic. If anyone was concerned that the relationship with the giant publication would diminish his eccentric approach to his subjects, they can rest easy. In sequence, Herzog waxes poetic about not being able to imagine being anywhere else in the world, while watching a man repair a rustic instrument while “surrounded by chickens.” The opening sequence begins with a visit to an Angolan tribe as they take part in a ritual. He then cuts away to a life-size model of the largest known elephant, complete with tribal chanting and dynamic camera angles. It is a breathtaking beginning to the film.
Whether the film’s conclusion is satisfying will depend on whether one is a destination or a journey person. I’m a journey person, and once again, Herzog takes us to places we would likely have never seen were it not for his existence.
Herzog emerged from the German New Wave of filmmakers in the 1960s, along with Wim Wenders, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, and Volkswagen Schlondorff. This group of artists helped change the perception of German cinema and post-war Germany.
Three years ago, I interviewed the gifted Oscar-winning composer of All Quiet on the Western Front, Volker Bertelmann, himself a German. During our conversation, he said, while lamenting his country’s role in two world wars, “In Germany, we have no heroes.”
I understood what he meant, but I must politely disagree. They have at least one. His name is Werner Herzog.
Ghost Elephants will stream on Disney in 2026, exact date TBD.
Train Dreams
Director Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams (adapted from a novella by Denis Johnson) is likely to earn him comparisons to the great Terence Malick. Considering the film makes extensive use of narration (in the voice of Will Patton), is visually lush and rustic, has dreamlike qualities, takes place in a natural landscape, and is full of loneliness, there is commonality between the two filmmakers. That would be reductive, though. Bentley’s work is more earthbound than Malick’s, has more moments of humor, and is more direct.
As a logger and railroad man, Robert Grainier, Joel Edgerton has one of his finest roles. Edgerton’s soulful brown eyes and a face made for melancholy are perfect for playing a deceptively simple man who experiences great loss and retreats from the world.
Grainier makes a living doing the rugged work that many can’t, or don’t want to: laying rail and chopping down trees. His work takes him away from his wife (a lovely and ethereal Felicity Jones), and after a fateful season of logging, he returns home too late.
The consequences are so profound that Grainier lives in the open for an extraordinary length of time. He is unable to go back or move forward. Grainier is saved by a Native American friend and a handful of puppies that show up one day as if they were dropped from the sky. The sorrow does not abate, but it is, to a degree, controlled.
Train Dreams is somehow not a miserable experience, despite what I’ve described. The sadness at the heart of the film is well-earned and never panders. There are numerous moments of levity among the loggers. Much of it is supplied by William H. Macy (in his best role in years), playing a man who would be referred to as an “old coot” in a John Ford western. There’s also a brief and delightful turn by the great Irish actress Kerry Condon as a surveyor who shares a moment or two with Grainier.
While I have never read Johnson’s book, I can’t imagine it would be an easy piece of fiction to bring to the screen. However, Bentley and his screenwriting partner Greg Kwedar (they also wrote Sing Sing together) are more than up to the task. I would go so far as to say that Train Dreams is a sleeper pick for a Best Picture Oscar nod. Bentley’s second feature (following his strong 2021 debut Jockey) is not plot-driven by any means. It focuses on character, and the people who are left behind by “progress” when axes are replaced by chainsaws, and wood by steel. Train Dreams feels like a poem as much as it does a film. Or, maybe a long sorrowful song punctuated by moments of sweetness. It’s a painful song full of sad truths. It is also a song worth singing.
Train Dreams will debut in limited release in theaters on November 7, 2025, and will be available to stream globally on Netflix on January 26, 2025.
