Very interesting and fascinating film. The outer shell shows a movie about grizzly bears the inner shell shows what the movie is really about, a character study of a disturbed man who was obsessed to the point of sickness with bears and protecting them ( atleast what he thought he was doing ).

I was drawn into this documentary from start to finish, the story of Timothy Treadwell is so surreal. The footage he captured was pretty fantastic, he was also very brave yet incredibly stupid to get so close to these animals. At the end of the day the thing he tried to " Protect " was the thing that took his life away.

Grade - A-/B+

{Here's a copy of my review from over in the Leper Colony (aka: Foreign & Independent Sub-forum)}

This one is pretty special - certainly a unique documentary about a damaged individual. With director Werner Herzog's presence and narration, it's almost turns out to be an anti-nature documentary. It contains many very challenging ideas to anyone who fancies themselves a "nature-lover". The movie within the movie made by Treadwell himself, is beautiful, shocking, and believe it or not funny. The tragedy is surely tempered by the subject's clear agenda and ultimate accomplishment of his goals. This movie needs to be seen to be believed...

5 out of 5.



(Many people in reviews and in the documentary itself seem to think Treadwell got what was coming to him - that he was crazy to work with the grizzlies - but it is important to note that Treadwell wasn't killed by the grizzly bears that he had worked with for 13 years, but rather by a rogue bear from up-country after he had been delayed in Alaska due to a dispute with an airline clerk.)

I guess I was slightly disappointed.

I didn't find it so much riveting as I found it an interesting, frustrating portrait of a nut, silmilar to that of 2004's In the Realms of the Unreal. I admired what Herzog ultimately attempted by the end of the film, paralleling Treadwell's story with that of the fragmented human condition, but it only connected with me periodically (I found the scenes with the foxes to be particularly haunting).

B+

Reminder: you can watch this awesome film for free at 8pm tonight and Saturday night on The Discovery Channel.

Fascinating film. A filmmaker partially completes another filmmaker's work by bringing his footage to the big screen, and partially adds his own analysis to the story.

A-

I only managed to see the last forty minutes on Discovery last night, so it was great to see the rest this evening. Very, very interesting look into this guy. Treadman was such an interesting character... words can't describe him. Like xia, I guess I'll call this look at his work fascinating. Haunting stuff at the beginning, seeing the bear days before it would ultimately kill him. I'm not a big fan of documentaries. I still dislike movies like Fahrenheit 911, Supersize Me, Bowling FC, etc. This one, however, was above average. I don't think it's BP quality, but this should have been winner for documentary at the Oscars. Boo for technicalities.

B+

A fascinating film. I loved the way that Herzog presented it... he definitely didn't pass Treadwell off as a Saint. He showed him exactly as he was - a man who was obviously crazy and self absorbed, but also passionately concerned about wildlife. It's too bad this was looked over by the Oscars. It definitely deserved a nomination, and I thought it was better than March of the Penguins.

As a side note, I especially enjoyed when Treadwell was going ballistic cussing out the park rangers, and Herzog said he had seen similar egomaniacal behavior from some of his stars before on other movie sets... obviously that was a poke at Klaus Kinski the insane movie star that Herzog frequently used in his movies, and would constantly fight with.

Grizzly Man gets a well deserved A

I dunno, I think I was expecting something more, or at least something different.

Herzog relies too much on Treadwell's footage to really craft his own story, and thus the film feels more like than an archival trove than an essayistic documentary. In other words, there's too little of Herzog in the film - the majority of the footage is shot by Treadwell, starring Treadwell, for Treadwell's own purposes, and Herzog's eloquent narration (tinted with that awesome accent of his) doesn't do enough to change that. It's too descriptive and not rhetorical enough.

That said, there's still a lot to like. Herzog paints a conflicted, deep portrait of this man, and (for better or worse) chooses not to offer a opinion one way or the other. On the one hand, I would've liked Herzog to interject a little more, offering his own view on Treadwell, but on the other, his restraint of opinion is somewhat admirable. I dunno. This film gave me a lot more trouble than I was expecting.

It's definitely an enjoyable and moving experience, I'm just not sure how much of that is Herzog's doing. It's almost like he's capitalizing on Treadwell's tragedy. Well, not quite that. But something like that. Maybe not capitalizing. That's the wrong word.

Anyway, not a great film, but still a pretty good one.

I completely disagree. I think Herzog is quite clear on the subject: Treadwell was a fool, as is anyone who thinks they can control the wilds of nature. Do so at your own risk.

Perhaps I just missed that, then, but I didn't get the sense that Herzog was overtly clear on the matter. I felt that his personal opinion was hidden for much of the film.

Herzog was pretty disgusted with Treadwell on a certain level. I agree with yoshue that that was obvious, but I think he was more upset with him because he had a certain responsibility to the girlfriend who followed him way past when the season ended. He was the one with a lot of field experience, and she followed him to her doom.

Could've sworn I had a review for this

Anyways, it's my top documentary ever and in my top 50. It's absolutely brilliant.

7/10 -> B-

A good docu. I just wish they played the audio recording of their death. A bit morbid - yes, but I think it would be great.

As I have already pointed out in this thread:

Yea. That is correct, but overall Herzog did find Treadwell to be a bit of a loony, showed by more than a few of his remarks of how Treadwell crosses the line in his videos with his comments/stuff and especially the part where Treadwell goes into the crazy/fuckk you mode and when he compares him to angry actors and how they spill everything into director's or producer's face with a single most important difference that his feud was against the society he should've been part of, unlike the one with actors/producer/director which is more on a personal level.

And it makes a huge difference when a person becomes angry with the society rather than a few individuals.

Without loonies none of the world's crazy work would ever get done...

I agree. And Herzog seems to be inspired by loonies a lot. As I already said the title for Encounters at the End of the World should've been Loonies at the End of the World.

8/10 -> B

I saw it again. I'm bumping it up a bit...