(DVD) (First Viewing, 2nd Herzog film)

Though it is often compared with Kubrick's THE SHINING, Werner Herzog's debut film SIGNS OF LIFE actually reminded me more of the first feature-length film of another Eastern European director: Roman Polanski's KNIFE IN THE WATER. Both films are preoccupied with the environment their characters inhabit, and in both cases the enormity and bleakness of the spaces they interact in become overwhelming and oppressive to the point it subverts the character's behavior beyond recognition. But while Polanski primarily explores this through endless expanses of water and sky, Herzog makes his examination even more abstract, to the point where the environment completely replaces the characters at the end of the film (much like Antonioni's L'ECLISSE), with only a monotone voice-over remaining to reference them and wrap up the story's explosive, highly-charged conclusion.

A beautifully austere film, almost intoxicating in its simplicity-- it really gets to you by the end.