SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Roger Thornhill Be under no illusion, this is not a volcano documentary. Whatever it is, is not even very good. You will learn almost nothing about volcanoes. There's some 'volcano porn' cinematography but it is dwarfed by a meandering, aimless succession of locations and people without any regard for any kind of unity of time and place, topped by Herzog's monotone narration and grating German accent throughout. It's possibly the worst voice over I've ever heard, and exists only because the director has cast himself in his own film.Confusingly, an eminent British volcanologist takes on the role of both interviewee and interviewer at times, and combined with Herzog's over-bearing vocal presence, you are never quite sure who's in charge of this enterprise. It may be that was an artistic/directorial decision, but it sure when right over my head in that case, and felt to me more like it came out of a lack of planning and focus on part of the director.There is an anthropological dimension to the documentary, looking at the people who live with the volcanoes, but it is conducted in a deeply unsatisfying way. We're treated to long, interminable minutes of a village chief's ridiculous and childish superstitions ("The volcano talks to me.. but I cannot say, it's a secret....the volcano is annoyed because foreigners come here...").This dull and prolonged pseudo-anthropological exercise in filming village people do their incomprehensible volcano-related rituals is followed by various other uninteresting bits until the documentary takes us to North Korea, where Herzog insults your intelligence with fury by suggesting - shock horror - that North Koreans are brainwashed into blind patriotism and admiration for their leader, and - wait for it - that they engage in propaganda! His apparent surprise is such that the film turns into a tired repetition of the same old news about North Korea, and the volcano that brought him there is pretty much ignored.In summary, it's not a good volcano film - you don't see that much, and learn next to nothing. It's not a good documentary about people either. Herzog and his British buddy are rather inept at talking to people and drawing out their interesting side in a way that documentaries demand. What's left is Herzog's ego and unpleasant voice.

Leofwine_draca Is it possible for Werner Herzog to shoot a documentary that ISN'T interesting? So far my answer would be no; INTO THE INFERNO is every bit as thoughtful, idea-provoking, and thoroughly engaging as the rest of the director's output that I've had the pleasure to watch. This one's all about volcanoes and is a follow-up of sorts to ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD.Herzog once again craftily mixes a variety of elements to keep this documentary fast-paced and eventful. There are the usual oddball characters acting in eccentric ways while others tell tragic stories and various slice-of-life stories. There's a travelogue aspect with globe-trotting in the Caribbean, Pacific, Japan, North Korea, and Antarctica. Herzog's voice may be softer now that the years advance, but he remains insightful and a pleasure to listen to. The footage of magma lava flows is incredibly beautiful and certainly the best you'll ever watch. As ever, this Herzog is a pleasure to watch.

tapio_hietamaki The first, but definitely not the last, documentary by Werner Herzog that I've seen, 'Into the Inferno' is a movie about volcanoes and the attitudes and beliefs people have toward them.For a documentary, the film isn't particularly informative. It's an art film, like you'd expect from Herzog. Most of all, it includes mesmerizingly beautiful footage of volcanoes. The sights feel otherworldly, chthonic, dreamlike: the red blood of the earth that flows from unfathomable depths.We are introduced to the volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer that Herzog met in Antarctica working on another documentary film of his. Together the two men traverse Indonesia, Africa, Iceland and even North Korea looking at volcanoes and interviewing people who live in their vicinity. The elements of science and religion are constantly intertwining. In addition to learning about prehistoric eruptions and various seismographic trinkets, we get introduced to cargo cults, ancestral spirits, doomsday prophecies and political cults of personality.Very interesting and thoughtful film. There are some very unexpected detours in the narrative: Herzog takes us where opportunity presents itself, not always focusing on the volcano theme but instead looking at paleonthology or the effects of propaganda on the human psyche.

Michael_Elliott Into the Inferno (2016) *** (out of 4) Werner Herzog narrates and directs this documentary, which takes a look at various volcanoes throughout the world.I should probably start off by saying Herzog is one of my favorite filmmakers and he might be my favorite documentary filmmaker. INTO THE INFERNO was a rather interesting idea but I'm not quite sure how well the end product turned out. If you're expecting a straight documentary from the maverick filmmaker then I'm going to guess that you're unfamiliar with his work. He's created some true masterpieces but none of them play like you'd expect them to.That's certainly true for this picture, which makes you believe that it's about volcanoes but you soon realize that the director is up to his bag of tricks and delivers more but I'll get into that in a bit. As far as the volcano stuff goes, it's extremely interesting to say the least. We're pretty much given a tour of the globe as we see various volcanoes as well as get to learn about their history and get to hear some stories about previous explosions. All of this stuff is brilliantly captured as the cinematography is downright terrific and the visual images of the lave are so beautiful that I could have easily watched them for hours.With that said, the film is also about various thoughts on life and other issues. I freely admit that I didn't think this segment of the film worked and sadly there's a lot of this stuff and I think it really brought the film down. The sequences in North Korea are a prime example as we get to hear stories of how the people there are basically hostages to their leader. What does this stuff have to do with volcanoes? All of it really seems like it should have been left for a different documentary but, as I said, Herzog likes to mix things up but I just don't think it was a success here.