Filmed on beautiful locations in Germany, Ireland, Switzerland and the USA, "Heart of Glass" (1976) is a poetic reflection on existence.Containing a little less absurdity than, for example, "Stroszek" (1977) and "Even Dwarfs Started Small" (1970), this work by German auteur Werner Herzog is rather a dramatic and thoughtful consideration of the importance of knowledge.

I have struggled through a good dozen of Herzog's early films and am not too proud to admit that I simply do not get it. Detractors accuse his films of being slow and pretentious (a word I hate). I adore Tarkovsky, Bergman, Antonioni, Kieslowski - all of whom suffer the same slings and arrows from would-be cineastes - but I just can't get into Herzog at all. I certainly enjoyed some his films more than others ; The Enigma of Kasper Hauser, Nosferatu The Vampyre and, in particular, Woyzeck all have their moments for me.Heart of Glass is best known as the outcome of Herzog's most radical experiment; having most of the cast perform under hypnosis. Accused to this day of gimmickry, Herzog insists that this was done for the sake of "stylisation not manipulation" in order to add a trance-like aura to the characters' increasing insanity. Factoring in the fact that almost everyone in the film was a non-actor, what do you think the outcome was? Let me save you the suspense. The outcome, as far as I'm concerned, was that we get to watch 90 minutes of people in what appears to be a stoned, stupefied coma. This is confounded by the fact that the dialogue - if it can be so called - seems to be written in some trite haiku style. For the most part, nobody talks to anybody else, they simply recite this flowery, contrived poetry at each other. Half the time, the actors are not even looking at each other! At the risk of sounding incredibly shallow, most of the cast could also be contenders for the title of Ugliest Person Alive.Don't get me wrong, I like a film to be challenging, but there's a line and Herzog not only crossed it, he set fire to it and threw it out the window. There's nothing challenging about an old man in a chair randomly and unconvincingly cackling; or a naked, bald-headed woman holding a goose (yes, a goose) and staring into space; or two half-cooked men slowly pouring beer over each other; or a man sitting perfectly still looking at a hand of playing cards while madness ensues around him. This is considered half-arsed film-making if we're talking about people like Jess Franco, but somehow Herzog gets away with it.I'd love to sit down and watch this again with someone who likes it so I can ask them to point out what I'm missing.The most painful thing about this film is that, after 90 minutes of genuine suffering, there is very little payoff. Okay, I get it, Herzog is making a point about faith, despair, hopelessness and the fragility of humanity (the heart of glass). He could have done this just as effectively in ten minutes, this being about the collective total of the film's screen time which I would like to see again, as it contains some lovely cinematography (which has nothing to do with the rest of the film).This notwithstanding, the only reason I could recommend this film to anybody is for the sheer, baffling pointlessness and stupidity of it. Honesty, you really do have to see it to believe it.

I've never been a real Herzog fan, and sometimes when I watch his movies (especially the ones about angels!) I'm saying to myself, "Does this explain what's really wrong with the Germans--is that why they make films like this?" That said--you might like this film: poetic, non-Hollywood, original, quirky, unique. 'Visionary.' Actually it reminds me of Kaspar Hauser--another of Herzog's films. Again the "mysterious" non-chronological plot line, the historical setting, the spacey images and the unresolved story. --And even the problem of figuring out what on earth is actually happening on-screen as you watch it. To me, this is a real 1970s film because of that--Bob Dylan's lyrics about "nothing is revealed" and "nothing was delivered" etc. come to mind and capture a lot of the ethos of that era. "Days of Heaven," "King of Marvin Gardens," "The Man who Fell to Earth" and a few other films come to mind.--Evocative and mysterious, or just artsy-fartsy and fakey? Herzog gets a definite A for effort.But, here in 2011, I'm not sure how many people will put it on the DVD or BluRay player and actually sit through the whole thing. It gets pretty gruelling or maybe just silly--depends on your point of view and 'level of enlightenment' I guess. These days count me in the front row with Joel and the wise-cracking robot roll-call!

There is a scene near the beginning in which two men in peasant dress appropriate to a period around 1800 are sitting across a small table from each other in a silent ale house. One of the men looks a bit like Richard Boone; the other like a guy who runs a pawn shop. They stare at one another sullenly. Boone finally says, "I'll dance on your corpse." Time passes. Enough time for glaciers to advance and retreat. "No, you won't," says the pawn shop guy. Dynasties rise and fall. Boone picks up his beer glass and wordlessly smashes it over the other man's head. The Mesolithic Age comes and goes. The pawn shop guy, as if playing Laurel to Boone's Hardy, deliberately picks up his glass and empties it over Boone's head. The end. That's the whole scene.The story, to the extent that there is one, is about a one-factory village whose foreman has just died and been buried. He was the only man in town who knew the secret of making ruby red glass in the factory. The owner of the factory is despondent. Or maybe not. It's hard to tell because everybody seems beset with melancholy. At least those who can express any emotion at all. It's been claimed that the entire cast was under hypnosis during filming. I don't believe it, but I can believe Werner Herzog slipped some sort of synapse-fusing psychedelic substance into their beer steins and bratwurst because there seems to be an abundance of schizophrenic non sequiturs on display. At times it looks like the scenes in the "loony bin" in Val Lewton's "Bedlam." I understand some German but, aside from the factory owner, this was one weird dialect. I won't go on with this because there's either too little to go on or way too much.The production design is exquisite and so is the lighting and the photography, both indoors and outdoors. Everything looks slightly blue, icy, and damp under the remorseless clouds but it's all beautifully done. The compositions are flawless. Herzog has the eye of an old-fashioned painter, somebody on the order of Rembrandt.There is no musical score except source music played on period instruments -- something that resembles a harp and another that looks like a miniature concertina.There isn't much to say about the film except that it's just about the opposite of what you'd find in a ten-second television commercial. No noise, little action, lengthy static shots, and no attempt to sell any discernible message at all.In a way, the movie resembles Werner Herzog himself. If you haven't seen him interviewed, you really should. He's calm and self possessed. His accent is soothing, enthralling even. He doesn't laugh and doesn't show any expression of irritation. He's like a very very good shrink. Yet, what he says is sometimes insane. "Even the stars are crazy"?