Herakles (1962)

Directed by

Werner Herzog

Genre

documentary film

Country

Germany

Runtime

9 min

Rating

6.0 of 10 from 28 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A short documentary from 1962, this is Werner Herzog's first film. It shows bodybuilders flexing and working out, and then presents six of Heracles's labors as modern problems. For each labor, a question appears on screen followed by scenes like a garbage dump, a traffic jam, or car racing crashes.

unsettlingexperimentalfragmentedtonally cooldisturbingabsurdstarkthought-provoking

What happens

Herakles (Heracles) is a 1962 short film and the first film by the German director Werner Herzog, then 19 years old. The film relates to six of the twelve labours of Heracles. The film starts with shots of young male bodybuilders working out in a gym, posing on a stage and flexing their muscles. Each of the labours are then announced by on-screen text in the form of a question, followed by related scenes of modern challenges intercut with the bodybuilders. The audio track of the film is saxophone jazz and sounds from a gym. The question Wird er den Augiasstall säubern? (Will he clean the Augean stables?) is followed by scenes of a garbage dump, Wird er die lernäische Schlange töten? (Will he kill the Lernaean Hydra?) is followed by a huge line of stopped traffic on a motorway and people walking around outside their cars, Wird er die Rosse des Diomedes bezähmen? (Will he tame the Mares of Diomedes?) is followed by scenes of car racing and several race crashes including a crash into the spectators and shots of the subsequent disaster and piles of bodies, Wird er die Amazonen besiegen? (Will he defeat the Amazonians? (Hippolyta)) is followed by scores of young women marching in uniform, Wird er die Giganten bezwingen? (Will he conquer the giants? (Geryon)) is followed by shots of rubble of a destroyed apartment building and men in uniform searching the wreckage, Wird er sich der stymphalischen Vögel erwehren? (Will he resist the Stymphalian birds?) is followed by jets flying in formation, shooting missiles and dropping bombs on training targets. The last shot of the film is of a bodybuilder's buttocks as he goes off the stage through the stage curtains. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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