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| The White Diamond | 
| Director: Werner Herzog
Studio: Fox Lorber
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $11.88
You Save: $8.07 (40%)
New (33) from $11.88
Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 52983
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), German (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Running Time: 90 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 5469
UPC: 720917546926
EAN: 0720917546926
ASIN: B000AQ68XC
Theatrical Release Date: 2004
Release Date: October 25, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Five Star Seller!!! New, factory sealed US Region 1 DVD. Item is 100% guaranteed not to be a bootleg or import. Item is shipped directly from our warehouse. Easy exchange if item defective or damaged in shipped.
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 11-15 of 15 | | « PREV | | |
 Will the real Herzog please emerge. February 28, 2006
0 out of 30 found this review helpful
This was so messy and Mr. Dorrington so over the top in
hi self promotion. YUK.!..my partner and I were disgusted.
He and his deceased friend/photographer are the rotten people who enter jungle animal habitats and cause the animals so much stress as to charge at them and these creeps can take photographs and brag-Degenerates for sure.Too damn bad for your buddy. It was obvious this was not quite of the caliber daring/bold/ and challenging as some of Herzogs past films. We have been fans for 20+ years. Looks like he did it for the money and Dorrington rode
Herzogs coatails in a way. Geez..I had just watched March of the Penguins and Wings of Migration and those! are truly documentaries made by film experts. The babbling and rambling on in The White Diamond made me pity Herzog. He did it for the $ maybe.Dorrington yammers on and on in such a disgusting way I suggest you turn the sound off and fast forward to the end shots
of the waterfall and the swifts. Hey Dorrington-Who cares about you? Herzog..Get out of California before you rot!
 Ecstasy January 16, 2006
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
Herzog's films are often about rulebreakers, visionaries and daredevils, something which he has always been himself. Being a daredevil flirting with death makes one feel alive, which is no small thing, but being a daredevil flirting with something even larger than death, is ecstasy. In this film, Herzog, his film crew and a small band of scientists headed by aeronautical engineer Graham Dorrington, head off to a remote area of Guyana to fly a newfangled zeppelin just a toe's length above the treetops of the jungle. Dorrington has his legitimate reasons for the usefulness of his invention, as does Herzog in documenting what may be an important new discovery in science and technology. But both of these men, as well as us in the audience, see these men's laughably primitive jabs at besting nature shrunken by the grandeur of the nature surrounding them. From the fierce power of the waterfall where they are camped out, to the unfathomable grace and sheer numbers of the birds who dwell behind it, the plight of two little men in a motorized air balloon is almost comical. I say almost because a man died in such an attempt ten years earlier - a scene that is described in chillingly vivid detail by Dorrington. Also, there is a kind of nobility in man's stubborn desire to defy his relatively scrawny limitations against nature. Whether it's Fitzcarraldo dragging a steamship over a mountain, Herzog himself trying to make the steamship climb the mountain for his film, or Dr. Dorrington sailing the skies in a contraption that seems as fragile as a butterfly, the dream is everything. The dreams of Herzog's characters - be they real or fictional - are usually short-lived, but at least the dreams do come alive briefly. If I could sum up everything that is great in Herzog's films, it would be in one awesome scene in this film where Herzog shoots the upside-down reflection of the mighty waterfall in a falling drop of rain. This moment, this reflection, this drop of rain is as temporary as life, but in it is the entire universe in all of its beauty, majesty and fragility. If that's not ecstasy, I don't know what is!
A Beautiful, Haunting Film January 10, 2006
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
Werner Herzog has made another utterly original movie. I don't even know how to catagorize this film. It's partly an exploration of the nature of obsession, partly a wildlife documentary, partly an aviation documentary, and partly a call home from a man who misses his family.
Obstensibly, it's about a scientist who is haunted by the death of his friend in a South American rainforest airship accident, and goes back to the rainforest to fly a new airship over the canopy. But Herzog appears to be figuratively panning the camera in all directions, and the movie goes in several directions simultaneously. The effect is a visually gorgeous film that not only explores the landscape of the rainforest, but also of human emotion.
At one point Herzog is able to film the secret nesting place of a huge swift colony. Herzog shows the local chief explaining that showing the nesting grounds to others will bring disaster--and then leaves the actual footage of the nests out of the picture! Wow. I loved this film.
An incomparably moving film full of stunning images December 13, 2005
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
This film goes way beyond documentary into the realm of art. As Herzog once said about a mountain, and as someone said about Herzog's work, it is "difficult ... dangerous ... ecstatic." It begins as a more or less conventional documentary about airships and one man's attempt to design a smaller and more maneuverable ship, but as it goes, it turns into a meditation on what this ship, the "White Diamond," means to the people who encounter it, from the engineer who seeks redemption for his colleague's death, to the village children who cannot "see" it, to the local man who wants to fly to Europe to find his family and cease being "a lost brother, a lost son." The airship is counterpointed with dazzling photography of the million swifts that fly in and out of a "Secret Kingdom" behind a waterfall, a flight that even the White Diamond cannot make. Other themes weave in and out -- levity, danger, and human emotion. The music is stunning. A superb movie.
A brilliant Herzog documentary! November 18, 2005
7 out of 16 found this review helpful
"... and most INCREDIBLE is visiting the home area of a million or so swifts. The end of the movie ... even now I cry sitting here. (Not sad, just awed.)"
A friend of mine told me this is a remarkable, an INCREDIBLE film. Based on seeing previous Herzog films -- Aguirre, Kasper Hauser, Fritzcaraldo, Nosferatu, etc -- I expected nothing less. To say Herzog makes interesting, thought provoking films is an understatement.
The White Diamond is a vision quest -- a documentary of a quest to explore a segment of the Amazon using a small, luminous helium-filled dirigible. The film explores the inner workings and psyches of those involved in the project. Herzog seems to revel in filming under adverse conditions.
You get to know the characters involved -- their dreams, challenges, frustrations and joys. This is an experience. This is not a zip-flash-bang film -- it is slow and revealing. Its imagery is mesmerizing and sticks with you long after the film ends. Hats off to Herzog!
New York Times: "Filled with breathtaking images." Herzog is "One of the greatest and most originals of documentary filmmakers."
Christian Science Monitor: "Touching, transfixing, unique."
Roger Ebert: "It earns its place among the other treasures and curiosities in Herzog's work."
So, see the film and let's see what YOU say about Herzog's "The White Diamond"!
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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