Crystal Heart
(Tomorrow, chaos, hope)
Introductory note: this method to follow the line of the film, Herzog has been built in a timeless, placing the fragments of paragraphs like pieces of a puzzle trying to deepen the romantic proposal Heart of Glass.
A prophet lives in the woods, away from their community. Go tomorrow, visit the villagers to learn that happen. The town is a classic German colonial town Herzog masterfully constructed, where beer and filth emerge as key elements.
A town where everything revolves around recovery the manufacture of ruby \u200b\u200bglass, the prince's obsession factory manager does come into dispute with the Prophet (Ilias)
The film is divided into two narrative levels: first, the prophetic visions of Ilias a world that is crumbling, destroyed, everything returns to a natural state. A nothing. The apocalypse will eventually crumble. This view is complemented by the end, I will explain in minute, I'll come to talk in the universe that Herzog built around the poor people and the metaphor of the ruby \u200b\u200bcrystal.
A small village inhabited by miserable humans that Ilias has left behind, where nothing is presented with a clear theme, everything is confusing and heavily slash the absurd theater of Samuel Beckett: two types of alcoholics who know his plan, after being alerted by Ilias, play with destination, drinking up the night fine, even die knowing that only one. The prophecy is fulfilled, are found the two and the people know that only one has died. Bodies are found by the image of a woman disturb the ambiguity almost hermaphrodite, who sleeps naked and has an obvious mental retardation, the image of the female has the "only" type of woman evident in the tape. Everyone drinks at the tavern, near the end, Ilias himself is there, prophesies a chaotic final : "everything burns, the people, the factory, all die. Except one. That goes away, nothing left behind. " men drinking and singing, the village is celebrating the girl undresses to disturb the music and excitement of those present. Someone tells of a fire, everything is destroyed, Ilias was right, the town witch and is locked in a dungeon, the town represents the collective vision of dread in a vacuum.
whole town disappears Ilias except that returns to the forest.
"In the fall and flight comes a new landscape, like the submerged Atlantis, the earth emerges from the water. I see a new land. "
initial prophecy Ilias, and culminates with the presence of a new universe that emerges from chaos. Herzog's images are beautiful, the scenery of forests may refer to one of the great poetic images seen in the cinema. Never mind the narrative time, Herzog's bankruptcy and distributes its own way to capture this atmospheric END TO BRING A NEW AWAKENING.
The confusion arises, Ilias sitting in the forest is visited by the villagers, who seek to explain the presence of a monster through his visions. Reassures them by saying only a shadow of a dwarf reflected in the sun, not to worry, what if a vision is a fire that sweeps the glass factory.
the blue flower of Novalis, Herzog disguised in a ruby \u200b\u200bcrystal
metaphorical The proposal focuses on the use of glass in ruby, is gone, the people suffer for the loss of precious asset, the prince and the factory owner complains: "and this perfection has been eliminated from the world." Only the prophet - Ilis - can save them.
Without the use of glass the people feel abandoned, now no one can protect the designs of the universe. The ruby \u200b\u200bcrystal metaphor points to the romantic idea of \u200b\u200bthe object - a symbol - the approaches to the divine perfection, without it they feel left to the luck of fate (Jean-Paul dreams about the death of God)
They pray to the saints to bring back the precious glass the prince has fallen into an internal anguish is everyone working to find a way to get back the ruby \u200b\u200bcrystal. Nothing happens. The agony becomes suffocation, all will vanish. Nothing will remain standing.
All the evil of the universe lies in the prince, sent to search the house of a farmer in what, who is believed to have stolen fire from the gods, the secret of the ruby. The hope of the people (UNIVERSE)
Ilias from above - in the mountains - look at the madness that has dropped his people, the only ruby \u200b\u200bsearch will curse. In their visions again appears the fire.
"I see people running up the hill, reach the top panting. They become stones next to each other, a forest full of stones.
Everything becomes dark and quiet, I like everything has been torn down ... "
The chaos is coming, Ilis knows, how he also knows that the only thing that will save him.
The end is near, absurd events recur: the man who has died is veiled, his soul is not respected. The drunken men while the women dance naked with corpse, the black humor creeps into the atmosphere. Only hope the final time, the fire is lit, nothing is saved, everything disappears.
Ilis walking toward the woods, snow cover, the hero invents a barrier, an invisible bear to be harder for you to return, he manages to beat him. The poet returns to the top, where is safe.
We move to the last vision of Ilias, which is connected with the principle. The search for truth is the way to get there. The epic Herzog is built upon the monumental: from Genesis to Revelation (or vice versa)
"Now I see the rocky island, I see clearly. There is a rocky island far out to sea and a second smaller island. They are at one end of the inhabited world. In one of the islands, have lived for centuries, some men forgotten, have not yet learned that earth is round. Among them held the belief that the earth is flat and the ocean ends in a bottomless pit.
I see a man at the top of the rock, takes years and years watching the sea alone, day after day, always in the same place. He is the first in doubt.
Then some years later, three men are added, for years seen together at the sea from the rock. Until one day decide to venture to the latter: they want to reach the edge of the world to see if there really is an abyss.
the journey, pathetic and unconscious on a boat too small.
MAY SEEM A SIGN OF HOPE BIRDS THAT KEEP YOU FROM OPEN SEA.
(Reminiscence to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Coleridge )
This concludes Crystal Heart, Herzog from aesthetics to its subject matter has built up a romantic world with clear definitions this: building their own universe, chaotic vision of existence, how to support elementary nature.
In this new hierarchy, men have dared to go beyond the bounds, there is a god (now Ilias) what is angry.
