horrible disappointment

I watched this tonight and all I could think was "this is horrible". I've been waiting for Netflix to release this for a while. I've seen a few of Herzog's films and documentaries and I have generally enjoyed them. I am a huge David Lynch fan and when it came and I saw his name on the jacket, and the plethora of respected names I told myself "I'm in for a treat!"

The film went nowhere, no plot. I've read the Oresteia and I know there was supposed to be symbolism, but it was horribly done. Okay, fine. I've seen lots of films with no plot. But when you have no plot, there's at least character development. I think of Bergman's Persona which is incomprehensible at times but haunting and emotional. I get lost in the characters even though I have no idea what's going on. In this film, most of the dialogue is pointless drivel. It makes me not care about any of the characters. Vagueness should not be confused for profundity. That is what the dialogue in this movie seemed to me. Razzle dazzle nothingness. Empty words with no meaning behind them.

In an essay by Joseph Conrad on art, he claims that the purpose of art is to evoke emotion. To create a sort of universal human experience, to make you feel something. You can see that throughout literature, film, photography, painting etc. I come back to Bergman and his dark philosophical films. Or Kieslowski, and the sublime beauty in his films that brings tears to your eyes. Or even David Lynch, whose quirky weirdness makes his films seem like surreal nightmares. Herzog has some amazing films like Stroszek, Aguirre the Wrath of God. Slow movies to be sure, but fascinating nonetheless. There is nothing like that here. No emotion evoked. No beauty, happiness, horror, fear, disgust--nothing at all. How is a film that doesn't evoke any emotional response from the audience supposed to be entertaining? Is the point to draw attention to the fact that it's only a film? It's been done before in better, more entertaining ways ways. A character study? The characters have no depth, as empty as the dialogue. So before you go telling me "go watch your Michael Bay movies!" or "you obviously didn't understand what they were trying to do", I understood and I still think it sucks. Major loss of respect for Herzog for directing this, and Lynch for producing this.