Animal Love / Tierische Liebe

I watched Tierische Liebe tonight. As I mentioned in a previous post, I found out about the director through a podcast with Werner Herzog, when he remarked on the film: "I have never looked so directly into hell." For a man who could make Even Dwarves Started Small, which I think is one of the most depressing films (and one of my faves), I felt like I had to see what Herzog considers to be a glimpse into hell.



The documentary, by Ulrich Seidl, shows various people in many stages of withdrawal from humanity and civilization. Some have had their hearts broken, some have never had a chance to have their hearts broken, some are simply disillusioned with life, some are just really old. All have retreated into a space where their only connection to love is by loving animals. "Loving" animals, unfortunately, didn't mean all of the people took care of their pets. There were even a few very disturbing scenes of a woman coming way too close to fondling her dog. There was also a brutal dog on dog attack scene, as well as some ferret issues. My mouth dropped open and stayed open many times.

What may be worse however, was how utterly miserable the humans were (with the exception of a swinger couple). Perhaps the saddest scene is the old man on one couch, his dog on the other, and the old man is talking to a phone sex operator. No masturbating, no movement. Just talking, as if he just really needed another voice around. Later you see him in portraiture style standing naked with his dog. The film has several still shots of people in the same room with animals, all incredibly disconnected despite the close proximity.

The film documents two central themes - that of the bond between humans and animals, and that of the complete alienation and utter isolation of humans. It doesn't bother to look into why humans are alienated, or why they love animals so much. It just presents images and brief monologue and leaves it to the viewer to digest.

I can see why Herzog said it's like looking into hell. The film is incredibly depressing now that I've had some time to reflect. I was mostly shocked during most of the viewing, and now I'm feeling bad for everyone in the documentary. Herzog often finds main characters for his feature films and his docs that are wildly determined, isolated and "out there" people, and any person in this film could have fit into Stroszek or The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser.

One word of warning: Don't do a google images search "animal love" unless you want to see animal love in the very literal sense.