Where the Green Ants Dream (1984)

Really Surprised!

Fresh and Exciting

The acting in this movie is really good.

Blistering performances.

At first, "Where The Green Ants Dream" sounds like something really interesting and very intriguing. While in there, the ultimate worthy value is of its entertainment purpose, since the artistic merits of it are quite simplistic. It is what it can be and no more than that. It's a good film, and can only be that. Great doesn't fit such unnecessary project empty of ideas.The movie deals with a strange impasse between a mineral company which wants to explore an aborigine land, and the proclaimers of such land, the native who claim the company will destroy their land and will disturb the sleep and dreams of some green ants who inhabit there, and those ants contain to power to destroy the whole world, if they were to be destroyed. Trying to settle down the issue is a company man (Bruce Spence) who each day goes by seems more inclined in protecting the aborigine and their traditions. Money and other offers are made to them but they refuse all of them...until the day they see an airplane and they want it. A trade seems to be made. Only seems cause the natives don't sign any paper and still refuse the exploration of the land.That kind of subject was covered in plenty of films, and better ones. Like "Lemon Tree" where a simple tree stands on the way between the Israel/Palestine conflicts. And real life has thousands of stories like this happening, about land expropriation in exchange of profit. The more "Where the Green Ants Dream" unfolds the more it becomes unnatural, forced and devoided of any kind of necessity to exist. Why must we see this? Well, what drags most viewers to this is the name of Werner Herzog behind the credits, an important director, indeed, but very little of his greatness is present in this project. The story goes up and down, our interest goes on and off from time to time mainly because of its characters, who should be sympathetic as they are in other movies, instead they're quite annoying, simple-minded, I couldn't care about anyone in here. I couldn't be on the company side and neither on the natives side. The latter was more of a case that I felt they weren't being real, they were inventing that ants story. It baffles me why the story haven't turned into more obscure and dangerous results. No, instead we have the plane being hijacked by a native who keeps singing "My baby does the hanky panky". Herzog wasn't tasteless with this film, he just didn't make this a more vital and relevant piece to the audience. 6/10

Some idiot claims that this movie is horrible but I would argue that this he/she is mistaken. None of the dialog is improvised though the performances are raw which the previous reviewer might be confusing with improvisation. Most fans of Herzog are also aware that Herzog's dialog is highly stylized and often surreal which may, to close minded people, be misconstrued as trite or childish. Perhaps it is something one has to get used to or maybe Herzog films are best left to those who are willing to view something out of the ordinary. Of course, not everyone will like everything, but opinions that are expressed should only come from people who are informed as an uninformed opinion is like showing a dog a card trick.

The words uneven and messy can not do this film justice. This has to be by far Herzog's worst film to date. I really went looking for this film and I now regret every minute I wasted trying to find it. Before I go to my real analysis, I have to say I am a pretty big Herzog fan but this film is a humongous disappointment.I have to say it started out on the right foot in begins with obscure footage of tornadoes and then moves on to a man in the Outback playing his digderidoo while the camera scans over an almost alien landscape. A very Herzogian way to begin the film. The biggest complaint is the acting. This is by far some of the worst acting I have ever, ever seen in a feature film. It is truly terrible. Even the leads were bad. Bruce Spence should probably never work in film again. The dialog is awful and completely insipid. It tries to be thought provoking but falls flat on its' face. The plot really makes absolutely no sense and they never try to explain it. The film tries to be powerful but winds being the classic "oppressed minority versus white majority" story that I could have watched on cable. Although I really cannot say anything bad about the cinematography, I was disappointed in the lack of apparitions that usually appear in Herzog's films. It is not very exciting. There is absolutely no insight to the characters. At the end, the film tries to bring back some of Stroszek's magic but winds looking like a desperate attempt to usher something in worthwhile so the audience will not felt they have been cheated by watching this debacle. The ending with more tornado footage serves as a very regurgitated message of the film. The classical music is also used very out of place.

This film has been ignored by the mainstream media. It portrays the futile struggle of an Aboriginal tribe against the needs of civilization. From the first confrontation you know how it will end, but you keep hoping that perhaps the mindless and soul-less rush of progress won't wipe out one more culture.Herzog captures the story in a series of vignettes, each one expressing a fleeting thought or detail.At one point Bruce Spence is trying to explain his theory of space and time to one of the elders, who rebukes him. His reply to the elder is "I'm trying to understand, really I am." The movie is a predecessor to "Rabbit Proof Fence". It makes you realize that as a society we just don't get it.I highly recommend it.