He let (!) the angry Klaus Kinski tow a ship over a mountain in the jungle, he continued an interview almost without a care in the world even though he was shot in the middle – and once he even ate his shoe after losing a bet. Werner Herzog is a man of extremes who is almost addicted to exceeding his own limits…
So it is only logical that he for the war film “Save the dawn“, can be seen today, November 29, at 8:15 PM on Arte 5, collaborated with another extreme artist: Christian Bale. The Oscar-winning “The Dark Knight” star starved himself a whopping 31 pounds for “The Machinist” to eat almost 20 pounds for “Vice.” The fact that Bale is also known for his tantrums on set makes him, in a sense, a successor to Klaus Kinski.
That’s what ‘Rescue Dawn’ is about
Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) wants nothing more than to fly. So, at the age of 18, he took American citizenship and enlisted in the Navy. In 1965 he was stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin to take part in a bombing raid on Laos. No one realized at the time that the limited conflict in Vietnam would escalate into a real war.
Directly above the jungle, Dieter is taken from the sky and put in a prison camp, where he is tortured and humiliated every day. Here he meets comrades in fate with Duane (Steve Zahn), Gene (Jeremy Davies) and a few other prisoners of the camp. Together they start making escape plans to leave not only the camp, but also the jungle behind…
Werner Herzog returns to the jungle
As early as 1997, Werner Herzog covered the true story of Dieter Dengler for ZDF and staged the documentary ‘Escape from Laos’. Dengler, originally from the Black Forest, is the only one of the 500 soldiers who managed to escape from Laotian captivity on his own. No wonder Herzog was enthusiastic about this story: The extraordinary takes center stage again!
‘Rescue Dawn’ also became a special film because Werner Herzog had a budget of ten million dollars at his disposal to return to the green hell. The film was shot in the majestic jungle of Thailand, which only Werner Herzog could stage in this fascinating way: an organism that is both paradisiacal and threatening, breathing, seething and devouring.
In any case, ‘Rescue Dawn’ is primarily a film that you can experience physically. Not least because Werner Herzog could rely on actors who were willing to go to extremes: Ex-Batman Christian Bale, Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies have starved themselves into skeletons and conveying the psychological torture of captivity to the outside world with their bodies.
Christian Bale, who also devours a jar full of live maggots and sinks his teeth into the flesh of a snake, said about working with Werner Herzog that he was the most hands-on director he knew personally. By the end of filming, Herzog is said to have lost almost all of his toenails. You can see that “Rescue Dawn” was about maximizing your own achievements and suffering, not just in front of the camera but behind it as well.
‘Rescue Dawn’ works brilliantly as an adventure film
If you ignore the passion with which Werner Herzog portrays the jungle and thus deliberately slow down the pace of the story, you get something different in my opinion with ‘Rescue Dawn’: an excellent adventure film. In the spirit of “Papillon” or “Broken laces“This is also about friendship and escape.
The bond currently developing between Christian Bale and Steve Zahn is becoming more and more apparent by the minute as the emotional core of the plot. The battle between man and nature, a common thread in the life of Werner Herzog, does not unfold here from a megalomaniac perspective, but from a comradely perspective: you support the two men.
In the final minutes, ‘Rescue Dawn’ becomes a heroic Hollywood story. Werner Herzog loves the overwhelming power that even ‘normal’ people can unleash under extreme circumstances. In the case of ‘Rescue Dawn’ he can now also speak of redemption: Dieter Dengler managed to escape – and survived four more plane crashes in his life. A real Herzog character whose life actually only takes place at the limit.