Werzog has made some good documentaries, I will not deny him that, but I couldn't help but feel that this film was just poorly made, and totally uninspiring (contrary to what people seem to think of it. The main protagonist (Graham Dorrington) is just unbearable to watch. Awkward, unprofessional and really annoying. Werzog is trying too hard to turn this into an inspiring, deep story, but fails on both fronts. The narration is bad (and often pointless), the story is actually quite boring, often lacked direction (the main focus of the film swerves from Graham Dorrington to Marc Anthony somewhere in the middle) and I had no interest by the time the film finished.I am so tired of people worshipping directors/filmmakers unconditionally based on one (or a few) good films. Werzog IS a good documentary film-maker, but that does not make this good.3/10

This is a lyrical film more than anything. Herzog refuses to classify his documentaries as "documentaries" which I respect. Truthfully this isn't a straight forward documentary even if it does follow one man's quest to get his air ship to float above Guyana.Herzog is an observer more than anything and we see that in how his documentary is assembled, he does not force anything and he will leave his camera on people for longer than you would expect so that they will feel compelled to say something else.A random man will come up and start talking and Herzog will focus on him for several minutes. This film goes alongside Herzog's other films that represent men with near impossible dreams.

Is it just me or is there a constant feeling that there's a lot of set up dialogues and impromptu pauses to force out speeches? Like the instances of Marc Anthony saying "yea..white diamond..yea..i love it..yea.." (this goes on for 2 minutes and happens A lot to different people throughout the film) and Dorrington being strapped onto the pipe apparatus in his workshop and pretending to fly for far too long looking kind of, as the film puts it, stupid stupidity? Don't get me wrong though, this has got some of the best footage and music score i've seen and heard, but is it really trying far too hard to be a no holds barred documentary? I would gladly give it an 8, but the weird forced and set up dialogues really brought it down.

With some proper editing Herzog would have been left with about 27 minutes of film. However, that 27 minutes is breathtakingly beautiful and you aren't likely to see it otherwise. As such- check this out, be prepared to be bored. My tip- as soon as you hear our protagonist's spiel about the air balloon and you understand what he is trying to achieve and why- simply fast forward through his boring butt every time you see him, unless he has balloons in his hand- and get on to the good stuff- the rainforest. He has very little to say that is interesting- his subject is the interesting part of this film- the rainforest jungle.Watching the rainforest scenes is a reminder to me as how instrinisically incorrect our current society is and how much better off we would be if the jungle could simply engulf us all once again and wipe out what we have "built". Once upon a time we worried about being eaten by a tiger, now we worry about getting shot by a crackhead- the same chances of death, the only difference is that now the water is bad and the air is foul and there are no more fish in the rivers, so we can't go back to the old ways since they only work when you Don't destroy your surroundings. Herzog found a place where all that has not happened as badly as it has here and there are still some beautiful things left to behold.So check it out on film while you still can because we are a culture that is hell bent on destroying all of this beauty with no regard to the inevitable cost of our own lives and grandchildren's lives which is very obviously the ultimate cost of destroying this once beautiful ghost of a planet. In a world where we think wiping out natural beauty is an acceptable part of progress this is a diamond in the rough. Could have used some better editing though and a bit more footage of some jungle stuff.