This is a heart-breaking documentary about activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard who lived for the summers amongst grizzly bears in the wild. Werner Herzog gives you details about their lives through interviews and some video shot by the pair over the last few summers.
I found this to be a really great documentary. It gives you an assessment of Treadwell and also on his affinity with the grizzly bears. It doesn�t pass too much judgement, but Herzog does give you his opinions. I couldn�t believe actually that this guy spent so much time with wild grizzly bears. He did this for 13 summers and spent like 3 months each year with them. To me, that�s a bit crazy, but to each his own. It showed how he would play with these bears and some other animals including a fox that he spent a lot of time with. I think personally that he did more harm than good to these animals. He seemed to show them that all humans would be kind to them and almost gave them some level of domestication. I don�t think that someone who wanted to protect these animals, would do this to them. They are wild animals, and they should be allowed to stay that way.
What also is great is that Treadwell took tons of video on his trips. He would go to schools and show some of these videos to children. He also had a foundation for grizzly bears that I�m sure he used these videos for raising money for the foundation. What is great from a filmmaking standpoint is that Herzog was able to see all the video unedited. When he presents some of these spots of Treadwell speaking directly to the camera, we discover a man who, in my opinion was going slightly mad. He shows a child-like naivety when is he among these animals. I think he may have also wanted to be like them. I think he felt that they paid attention to him and that it made him feel special. I think he felt lonely much of the time and had a lot of self esteem issues. It�s fascinating to watch someone go through this kind of self-analysis and just venting. As far as Amie, it�s almost as if she�s not present. You only see her briefly in this video, which leads me to believe that she loved Timothy Treadwell, but she also felt that he was slightly crazy. Who knows?
Regardless, this is a fascinating documentary and I highly recommend that you seek it out. It�s a fascinating depiction of a human being and his link to nature.
For more information
official website
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