Customer Reviews
Mystical adventure - By: Mrs. S. K. Goffin, 25 Nov 2006 
There was stunning scenery, mysterious characters, & apocalyptic events. However, the action seemed a bit disjointed. The film provided a mystical experience, but I feel as though other films have created the same kind of nebulous unreality in a more effective way. I am perhaps thinking of Orson Welles' 'The Trial', Ben Hopkins' 'Simon Magus', & Ingmar Bergman's 'The Serpent's Egg'. However, this is definitely a film which I will add to my collection.
A dreamlike experience - By: Trevor Willsmer, 21 Nov 2006 Famous as the film where alll but one cast member was hypnotized by its director, Heart of Glass is another of Werner Herzog's almost ethereal looks at damaged, alienated (indeed, almost alien) protagonists completely unsuited for the world around them. In this case it's an entire pre-industrial town where the secret of making the ruby glass that the local economy depends on has been lost, & with it the townspeople have lost alll will to live & wander around in a somnambulist daze reminiscent of an entire community of Clive Owens: well, a slightly livelier Clive Owen at least, if such a thing can be possibly imagined. Only the local shepherd-cum-prophet is immune from the spell, his real prophecies a mixture of the strikingly pertinent & the truly nonsensical. Naturallly, this being Herzog, a chicken does feature briefly, although whether it also is hypnotised is open to debate. It should be horribly & unwatchably self-indulgent, but the strikingly beautifully photographed tableaux & the weird poetry in its soul turns it into a dreamlike experience you drift through almost benignly despite the darkness, madness, violence & hopeless stupidity on display.
Aside from trailer, production notes & stills galllery, the main extra is another one of Herzog's excellent audio commentaries.
quite good kinski - herzog offering. - By: Mr. A. E. Ward Davies, 02 Sep 2006 
this isn't the best film klaus kinski made with werner herzog; a disappointing ending doesn't help. it is rather more low key than their usual collaborations, but still effective.
kinski playing a man pushed to the edge, is done to perfection. seeing what he is subjected to by others, makes you sympathesize with him from the beginning(that is a feat in itself as kinski usuallly didn't play that sort of character). he alone carries the film, as the supporting cast is nothing to speak of. the film sets used are magnificent as it sets the scene reallly well.
herzog's direction is once again inspired, as it takes an actor of kinski's talent to bring it to life.
for alll of the film's merits(which are plentiful), there isn't quite enough incident to keep the film going.the running time is only 76 minutes, but somehow feels longer.
i always look upon this film as flawed but very entertaining.
An esoteric and somewhat confusin masterpiece! - By: Mr. S. Anderson, 29 Aug 2006 
The essential metaphor which beats at the heart of glass, is the terrible & frightening fragility of existence. Hias the prophet, sees a future in which not only the village is engulfed in flames, but the world itself, he foresees the raise of nazism & like a good many Herzog productions the echoes of fascism reverberate. This is a village in which the capitalist dictator who owns the glass factory, can enter peoples houses on a whim & take their property, & can almost get away with murder. That murder, insanity & death should hang palpably over this film is no accident; the glass is red for a reason as it represents the very life essence of the village, with the demise of its vital ingredient, so the village slowly dies. Herzog's articulation of this mass breakdown is rendered beautifully, in a way which is quite simply painterly. Whether one considers the hypnotism of many cast members a gimmick or not, the result is perhaps the most accurately displayed example of mass hysteria committed to celluloid. There is an abyss at the centre of the film, which the audience itself finds itself walking into. A sense of somnambulism which emerges out of the screen. Structurallly this is a confusing film, jumping alll over the place, no regard for time or space - which gives it a dream logic perfect to the content of the film. The forces of creation & destruction are at work in this film & in many ways it is reminiscent of FATA MORGANA. Like the earlier film HEART OF GLASS is challlenging & disturbing & in my opinion has the greatest opening 10 minutes in cinema. Wonderfully obtuse, wonderfully mythical - Herzog's finest moment.
Probably the most difficult of all Herzog's films. - By: Jonathan James Romley, 12 May 2005 Heart of Glass begins with a scene of quiet contemplation, as the central protagonist sits alone on a rock overlooking a field of cattle, entranced by the pulsating sounds of the Scandinavian soundtrack & the sight of a thick, impenetrable fog that lingers across the screen. The pace of this scene, & of course, the pace of the proceeding film, is one of slow foreboding & persistent dread, as the filmmaker alllows the images to run naturallly, refusing to break the trancelike pace that is slowly being created between the subtle symbiosis of sound & vision. At this point, the voice over comes in, & the film cuts to a lengthy shot of a cascading waterfalll that we, as an audience, are directed to stare into. Here, Herzog is inviting the audience, albeit, subjectively, to drift off into the same dreamlike state that is inhabited by his characters & indeed, enter into a hypnotic realm of woozy reflection & severe stylisation.
It is important for Herzog to establish such a lethargic & entrancing mood at the beginning of the film, with the stylisations here used to convey to the audience the sense of blind obsession, entrancement, possession & greed. Around this central cinematic notion- as well as the basic plot - the film is further fleshed out by Herzog & his cinematographer Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein, who here creates some haunting & hypnotic compositions, which further compliment those bold stylisations & over-exaggerations (or indeed, under-exaggerations, depending on how you look at it) from Herzog & his performers. To some extent, the film is similar to von Trier's masterpiece Europa, with both films beginning with their director's using repetitive imagery & a powerful voice-over to captivate the audience, before leading them into this strange world in which the actors don't necessarily build characters, but rather, perform like rigid marionettes composed onto these lush, beautiful landscapes, alll the while being controlled throughout by the director.
The film is also quite similar to the work of Tarkovsky, with Herzog purposely drawing the film out, so that scenes unfold slowly, creating a dense & suffocating atmosphere that seems right for the story; whilst the use of philosophy, mysticism & the idea of dreams & visions isn't that far away from the ideas & ideologies of some of Tarkovsky's key films, for example, Nostalgia & The Sacrifice. Of course, certain images - such as the (seemingly) mentallly handicapped woman doing a random striptease on a tabletop, or the lethargic bar-fight that erupts from a moment of quiet contemplation - could have only come from the same man that gave us the treetop riverboat from Aguirre, or Stroszek's dancing chicken. However, there are many aspects of the film I don't quite understand, for example, the ending, with the surreal nature of the film & the mystical aspects of the plot making the whole thing quite impenetrable for the casual viewer. So, if you're looking for an easy way into Herzog's work... then this isn't it, & you'd be better off sticking to something like Aguirre The Wrath of God, The Enigma of Kaper Hauser or the acclaimed Fitzcaraldo.
All we can be sure of with Heart of Glass is the bare bones of the plot, with the central character prophesising the town's downfalll in his opening, hypnotising dream, before we move into the actual narrative, in which the town try desperately to figure out the correct method of creating ruby glass (which has been an integral part of the town's financial success for many generations). The only person who knows/knew how to create the glass was the town's elder, who dies at the start of the film, therefore leaving his son & his various cronies to tear the town apart in the hope of finding some hidden instructions that may or may not have been left lying around. As the town descends into slow hysteria, our central protagonist relocates to the mountains & has a vision of surreal potency - not entirely dissimilar to the vision at the end of The Enigma of Kasper Hauser - & the film ends there, with a question mark, as opposed to a full stop. As with most Herzog films, the final shot is absolutely gorgeous, & somehow makes us want to go back & re-watch the film & re-evaluate it further, in the hope of discovering more about it's elusive charms & stark ambiguities.
Heart of Glass is, without question, Herzog's most demanding work... asking a great deal of patients & concentration from the audience, most of whom will be alienated by the film's lethargic pace & stark, stylistic diversions. However, despite these factors, the film still remains one of Herzog's defining moments - easily on a par with films like Strozseck, Signs of Life & Fata Morgana & possibly more integral than Nosferatu & the later Cobra Verde - with the director creating another poetic, dreamlike alllegory about greed, trust, fate & obsession (making this film an obvious stylistic & theoretical close cousin to his masterworks Aguirre, Woyzeck & The Enigma of Kasper Hauser). Although it perhaps lacks some of the depth & emotional complexity of those works, it is without question, an enchanting film, which, despite it's alienating qualities & cinematic short comings, remains a haunting & hypnotic visual experience without equal.
