“Death is descending from the heavens. But no one knows how to look up.”
-Werner Herzog in Dinotasia (2012)
I know very little about Herzog, aside from his great love for Baby Yoda. I also know that he is a highly regarded German director. This is the only film of his I’ve seen, and it’s not likely I’ll seek out his other work. I just think his films might be too dense for me.
Herzog narrates Dinotasia, and his involvement, coupled with this striking poster, led me to assume that this was an experimental art film. A poetic visual history of prehistoric dinosaurs and their cataclysmic demise. The synopsis reads: “One of our favorite natural history subjects, the dinosaur, gets a makeover and then some in this fantastically ambitious and groundbreaking documentary.”
Not so! What can I even say about Dinotasia? Is it supposed to be like fantasia? So many questions about this bizarre little movie. VERY FEW ANSWERS. First of all, documentary, like everything else in that synopsis, is misleading. Dinotasia is actually a series of vignettes featuring unnamed dinosaurs in situations that are cartoonishly ridiculous and dramatically perilous.
Herzog’s accent is exquisite and apparently is constantly imitated, which is probably why it sounded so familiar to me. And really, who can resist hearing him make such ominous statements about nature’s cruelty (a theme he explores in his own films)?
“The savage indifference of nature does not hide its beauty. But there is nobody to appreciate it. No poets, no painters, just the art of survival, which was then the only art that could be learned.”
This potent insight is followed by a vignette where a mother joyfully throws her babies out of the nest and watches as they’re killed. The lone survivor is almost devoured by a pair of alligators. This is the sort of fun Dinotasia has to offer. Other fun vignettes include a dinosaur getting its head bitten off (unseen) for chirping too loudly; one getting revenge years later after its jaw was broken as a child; and a dinosaur tripping on shrooms! The latter actually reminded me of a similar scene in Pixar’s neglected masterpiece, The Good Dinosaur. Now I have to wonder if Pixar was inspired by that and decided to flex because they knew their sequence would be better. (If Dinotasia had Pixar’s budget, the CGI would have been a lot more polished).
Dinotasia is like a typical wildlife documentary with its graphic scenes of violence and death. And as dear Werner would no doubt remind us, nature’s savagery is unending. But his solemn narration just doesn’t work even for those moments! And yet. Somehow. That is what makes Dinotasia so brilliant.
Other highlights:
A T-Rex biting off the tiny arm of another rex (I actually wondered if it would grow back?! It didn’t).
A dinosaur nuzzles its mate, only for the mate to tip over because it was frozen to death. I don’t think that was supposed to be funny but I laughed. I’m still laughing now.
My sister wanted to know why I watched “a movie called Dinotasia at my big age.” Well, I thought it was going to be fantastically ambitious! I’ve also been on a dinosaur kick recently. Part of me says I’m not a paleontologist and I should have outgrown this fascination by the time I got to high school. And then another, smarter part says: no❤️
I wonder if my childhood obsession with Jurassic Park (I haven’t outgrown that either) could have evolved into a passion for digging up fossils. I regret that careless error of my youth, not becoming properly fascinated by dinosaurs. Maybe I could have been a paleontologist.
This captivating artwork is from “Birds and Dinosaurs: The Origin of Flight,” the first in a 12 part lecture series taught by Dr. Bruce E. Fleury.
As Dr. Fleury explains, dinosaurs didn’t actually go extinct; they are still with us today as birds. Isn’t that spectacular? Birds are literally dinosaurs. A lot of our birds today, like turkeys and ostriches, are just as hideous and terrifying as their prehistoric ancestors. Again, spectacular.
There’s a lot to grieve in this world, which makes wonderment all the more necessary. What would Werner Herzog say about that? Maybe something like this, from a letterboxd review that I cannot stop thinking about:
“Yes,” says Werner Herzog, “It is an absurd, perverse, and cruel world these dinosaurs live in. This Dinotasia as you call it is very much my world.”