where the green ants dream

the clash between old and new, paleolithic and computer age, black and white, pastoral and nomadic are millenia-old and controversial and prone to polemics. this compelling film (which could easily be mistaken for a documentary if not for direct conversation and some herzogian touches almost bordering on the absurd) covers the clash between aboriginals and a (white) mining company over a land the aboriginals hold sacred- the place where the green ants dream. in the voice over, Herzog claims he made up the green ant dreamtime but in reality such a thing (not sure if it is green) exists but elsewhere in NE Australia. Based on an early legal battle which was ongoing when Herzog was visiting Australia between an opal mining company and aboriginal people of Central Australia, the movie is filled with beautiful, stark and sometimes bizarre imagery starting from an almost eerie, speckled movie of a tornado shot in Oklahoma which strangely enough sets the tone for this very quiet movie. The aboriginals lose the case but the sympathetic judge laments that he is merely following the law of the land even though it is not very fair to the aboriginal people. Later cases were apparently overwhelmingly in favour of the aboriginal people. There are classical Herzogian touches and images- the poignant scene where the 'mute' goes up to the witness box and speaks in a language which no one can translate as he is the sole surviving speaker, the rest of his tribe having died out, reminiscent of the melancholic beauty of Ray Bradbury's short story The Foghorn; the courtroom scene where the two watches worn by the tribe elder goes off; the harrowed search for Mrs Strelow's dog lost in the underground mine chambers; the two elders (mala-mata pair?) sitting in the airplane which is green and almost insect like staring at the East where the green ants fly to; the final scene where the geologist decides to quit mainstream life and science and go live in the outback and walks amidst conical piles of earth dug by the opal boring drills. Oh and there are snatches of a South American futbol commentator orgasming like a fire engine siren on a goal (Argentina scored i believe) played out on a radio, something Herzog claims he listens to whenever he is disturbed !! And there are a couple of mesmerising didgeridoo tracks played by the elder himself.

There is a bit of a "we are natives, so we are in tune with the land, you white people know only to destroy" tone running through the movie which Herzog expresses regret for in the voice over (done many years later) but it is never overdone or sentimental or overly moralizing. Herzog has since challenged the relationship between man and nature, most recently in Grizzly man.

Not surprisingly, i immediately linked it to Chatwin's songlines and it turns out Chatwin and Herzog did meet and talked 24 hours nonstop about everything on earth (Chatwin did 2/3rd of it). Herzog also inherited Chatwin's leather rucksack after his death.