Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World — Review
Werner Herzog’s latest documentary was screened as part of Central Docs Club, followed by a discussion hosted by the 405 Film podcast. Come to Picturehouse Central next Monday 7th November to see Dream Is Destiny, the new film about Richard Linklater.
Werner Herzog’s new documentary is a captivating, intellectual view of modern technology, exploring digital possibilities and liabilities.
Lo and Behold begins with a story told by computer scientist Leonard Kleinrock, regarding the first internet-based communication in 1969. The first ever digital message was intended to read ‘LOG’, but a machine crash caused it to print ‘Lo’. ‘Lo and behold’ the internet, Kleinrock proclaims, using archaic language to express the surprise of futuristic innovation.
47 years on, this sense of surprise in the internet’s messaging capabilities has faded. Young adults may take the digital world for granted, offered its endless opportunities daily and for free. However, as Herzog argues with the help of a number of academics and leading thinkers, the beauty of the internet is its constantly evolving nature.
A range of perspectives, from video game addicts and computer hackers to brain scientists and Elon Musk, enable Herzog to balance academic views with human interest stories, without trivializing the complexity of the subject. Herzog’s method is wonderfully pitched with humour, his iconic Teutonic voice emerging from behind the camera and in voiceover. Crucially, the director knows when not to speak, allowing the beautiful work of cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger, and the score by Mark Degli Antoni and Sebastian Steinberg, to tell its own story.
A stunning shot of the Chicago skyline pans around to show a planetarium and monks on smartphones loitering nearby. ‘They all seem to be tweeting,’ narrates Herzog. The juxtaposition is comic but thought-provoking; meanwhile, the director speaks about the colonization of Mars on top of this idyllic image. The rest of the documentary functions in this other-wordly tone, capturing the mystery of the internet in the ‘connected world’ and beyond.
We rarely hear Herzog ask his questions from behind the camera; instead, he creates a synthesis of responses to the same question, forming a kind of consensus among the thinkers he interviews, despite speaking to them all separately. When Herzog does speak, he improvises practical, even naive, questions, allowing the audience to share his beginner’s perspective. As a man without a smartphone, he shows child-like curiosity about the technological world, as if assessing it from a distance. The documentary’s storytelling is therefore accessible yet intellectually stimulating, covering topics ranging from molecules to Mars with remarkable clarity.
Footage of Honda’s ASIMO robot opening a bottle and pouring a drink may sound mundane, but in context it becomes a powerful symbol of machine autonomy — more importantly, a symbol of its elegance and innocence. Herzog shows awareness of the pitfalls and dangers of this technological development, but presents an equally optimistic view of the immense creative and logistical possibilities that the internet has provided.
More pessimistically, the documentary also questions the world’s reliance on the internet to maintain basic needs, as in Maslow’s hierarchy, such as food and water, and the potential danger of a loss of a connection. Herzog deftly juxtaposes any technological ideal, such as the benevolent domestic robot, with both man-made and natural causes of digital destruction. Solar flares never seemed so threatening.
Can the internet dream of itself? Will future generations need human interaction, or will social conventions become optional? These are big questions that seem unanswerable, but Herzog inspires the viewer’s imagination with the hypotheses he records. Despite this, he acknowledges one certainty. A roboticist debates: ‘will there ever be an artifically intelligent machine that makes movies. Absolutely, yes. Will they be quite as good as yours?’
‘Of course not,’ Herzog replies.
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World is now showing in selected cinemas. For more information about Picturehouse Central’s documentary programme, click here.
