Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Werner Herzog's exploration of the Internet and the connected world.
Werner Herzog brings his singular, philosophical voice to the documentary form, turning a survey of internet culture into something genuinely strange and poetic. His eccentric interview style and willingness to ask absurdist questions ('Does the internet dream of itself?') give the film a one-of-a-kind quality that no other filmmaker could have produced. The episodic structure covers ground from ARPANET origins to solar flare apocalypse fears with characteristic Herzog melancholy and wonder, though the format can feel loosely stitched. Cinematography is functional rather than distinguished, and without traditional actors the 'acting' category reflects the varying naturalism of interview subjects. The ending, like the film itself, fades into Herzog's trademark cosmic ambiguity rather than resolving into anything definitive.