In 1955, Hungarian born Angolan rancher, businessman, and big game hunter, Josef J. Fénykövi, tracked down and killed the largest land animal on record.
He was lauded by Sports Illustrated at the time for this sportsman prowess, although Fénykövi also told the story that there was another, much larger elephant that day that escaped their hunting party. Fénykövi diligently measured the proportions of the animal, posed with his fire-arms and the huge corpse for the magazine, and then donated the remains to the Smithsonian Museum, where it was nicknamed Henry.
Henry has been on display for over 50 years. Or, rather, parts of him.
The two tonnes of skin was mounted over a scaffold, but the structure was not able to support the massive skull and tusks, which are hidden away in the labyrinthine corridors of shelves in the national institution's basement.
Henry has been on display for over 50 years. Or, rather, parts of him.
The two tonnes of skin was mounted over a scaffold, but the structure was not able to support the massive skull and tusks, which are hidden away in the labyrinthine corridors of shelves in the national institution's basement.
It is here that writer, director, narrator, and cinema’s poet laureate of the “ecstatic truth,” Werner Herzog sets the stage for latest documentary, Ghost Elephants. Part (benevolent) heist film, part expedition-adventure, and part ‘hanging-out’ film, the director accompanies South African conservation biologist Dr. Steve Boyes on a mission, more than a decade in the making, to track the elephants in Angola’s Bié Plateau, one of the most isolated, and uninhabited regions on the African continent known as The Water Tower of Africa, a watershed the size of England, at high altitude of misty valleys, peat swamps, rolling grasslands, and patches of forest.
The goal, somewhat akin to Fénykövi’s mid-20th century hunt, is photos — albeit more often than not on cell phone cameras, not glossy spreads on photographic film. Unlike the mid-20th century, where big-game hunting was considered the aspirational playground for the rich and masculine, here it is not to kill the animal as a prize, but rather get a snippet of DNA for science.
Boyes has been uncovering unique species of animals on the continent for much of the 21st century (indeed there are still a plethora things to discover and catalog on our complex planet) but the Ghost Elephants of Lisima are his Melvillian White Whale. Herzog spends a lot of time interviewing Boyes (he is a wonderfully expressive man) as he assembles a team for the mission.
High-tech 21st century methods, thermal imaging, arial surveillance, and so forth have all failed to locate the elephants, so Boyes is in Namibia looking for the best of the best of the San Bushman trackers. Men who can read the sand and the wind, as is said more than once in the film (and without irony) like a modern person would read the newspaper.
The goal, somewhat akin to Fénykövi’s mid-20th century hunt, is photos — albeit more often than not on cell phone cameras, not glossy spreads on photographic film. Unlike the mid-20th century, where big-game hunting was considered the aspirational playground for the rich and masculine, here it is not to kill the animal as a prize, but rather get a snippet of DNA for science.
Boyes has been uncovering unique species of animals on the continent for much of the 21st century (indeed there are still a plethora things to discover and catalog on our complex planet) but the Ghost Elephants of Lisima are his Melvillian White Whale. Herzog spends a lot of time interviewing Boyes (he is a wonderfully expressive man) as he assembles a team for the mission.
High-tech 21st century methods, thermal imaging, arial surveillance, and so forth have all failed to locate the elephants, so Boyes is in Namibia looking for the best of the best of the San Bushman trackers. Men who can read the sand and the wind, as is said more than once in the film (and without irony) like a modern person would read the newspaper.
This is where Herzog shines. In the ‘down-time’ of getting comfortable and building trust with one of the oldest people on earth (who are, the director is quick to point out, also, quite adept with smart-phones and DNA swabbing), Herzog documents the local culture with an eye for the strange, but a head for the relatable, and a twinkling eye for both the profound and the mundane. He films an elephant trance ceremony under the stars, in which the spirits of deceased elephants enter into the bodies of humans, to highlight the exotic, but then grounds things with thoughts on a father having a quiet fireside chat with his son at the end of a day.
He follows one of the trackers, Xiu, after physically re-enacting the death of an armadillo, on a hunt for rare grubs that yield the lethal poison for the arrows he uses for hunting antelope. Like Quint, Hooper, and Brody, in Jaws, the hunter, the scientist, and the sheriff (or in this case, filmmaker) bond by sharing stories of rare and lethal poison encounters in their past. Even as he does this, Herzog calls out his own push-pull with romanticizing ancient people, adrenaline pumping quests, or a a well-framed scattering of chickens framing a man quietly repairing his musical instrument.
He follows one of the trackers, Xiu, after physically re-enacting the death of an armadillo, on a hunt for rare grubs that yield the lethal poison for the arrows he uses for hunting antelope. Like Quint, Hooper, and Brody, in Jaws, the hunter, the scientist, and the sheriff (or in this case, filmmaker) bond by sharing stories of rare and lethal poison encounters in their past. Even as he does this, Herzog calls out his own push-pull with romanticizing ancient people, adrenaline pumping quests, or a a well-framed scattering of chickens framing a man quietly repairing his musical instrument.
Driving cellos and heightened tribal choral singing give the film an elevated drama, even as the camera work does the accounting. There are magnificent drone shots of the unspoiled Angolan plateau rivers, and stars dancing across the sky, while the team settles into their base-camp. There is even an underwater reverie of an elephant kicking up ochre coloured mud into mushroom clouds as it plays and bathes in joy.
Herzog also makes powerful use of a clip from Italy’s exploitation Mondo Cane cycle of films, Africa Addio, to show just how devastating the big game and Ivory industries were to the population of one of the worlds most majestic beasts. This is overlapped with a local scientist explaining the effect of the decades long Angolan civil war, and what landmines (one of humanities cruellest inventions) can do to migratory paths of large fauna.
Herzog also makes powerful use of a clip from Italy’s exploitation Mondo Cane cycle of films, Africa Addio, to show just how devastating the big game and Ivory industries were to the population of one of the worlds most majestic beasts. This is overlapped with a local scientist explaining the effect of the decades long Angolan civil war, and what landmines (one of humanities cruellest inventions) can do to migratory paths of large fauna.
Eventually, the quest takes the trackers, the scientists, the filmmakers, and a small convoy of Toyotas hundreds of kilometres into Angolan ‘terra incognito,’ unknown lands, as far as the rough track will let them go. Abandoning the 4-wheel drive, they portage motorcycles across crocodile infested rivers to follow narrow hunting trails before eventually required to abandon all things which wheels and motors, and switch to foot travel and backpacks for many more kilometres of tracking in the upper plateau.
This is not quite on the level of the conquering hubris of Man vs. The Implacability of Nature often seen in Herzog’s fictional work, such as Fitzcarraldo or Aguirre, The Wrath of God. The journey here leans into the pragmatic elements, and takes a rather good-natured humour in the fortune and misfortune of expedition, where science is often not an exact science.
Ghost Elephants does not ignore the scale of technological advancement required to make sense of the findings of the adventure. Herzog’s film is as equally curious about the various university researchers as he was the Namibian villagers enacting trances, as Steve submits samples to be categorised, quantified, and correlated by the large American University bureaucracy.
Late in the film, there is a shot of a University of California laboratory, in which all the bench space is covered in scores of dead birds, laid out and neatly preserved like mummies, as if Herzog happened to be walking by on the way to the DNA sequencing lab, caught this morbid tableau out of the corner of his eye, and had to film it and put it in there to underscore our shrinking world.
Ghost Elephants does not ignore the scale of technological advancement required to make sense of the findings of the adventure. Herzog’s film is as equally curious about the various university researchers as he was the Namibian villagers enacting trances, as Steve submits samples to be categorised, quantified, and correlated by the large American University bureaucracy.
Late in the film, there is a shot of a University of California laboratory, in which all the bench space is covered in scores of dead birds, laid out and neatly preserved like mummies, as if Herzog happened to be walking by on the way to the DNA sequencing lab, caught this morbid tableau out of the corner of his eye, and had to film it and put it in there to underscore our shrinking world.
Like Encounters at the End of the World -- aside: is Herzog the only documentary filmmaker who has shot on all seven continents? -- he delights in repurposing curious visual tangents (recall the suicidal penguin) into the main structure of the film, which might uncover some broader understanding of the film and the world.
Like the ancient groves and mythologies of Princess Mononoke, the preservation of ancient massive beasts against the tensions between progress, war, and even human curiosity, I never quite made the connection between the extensive and humane works of both Hayao Miyazaki and Werner Herzog, but the shimmer of a Venn diagram is there if you look for it.
The documentary will open in select North American theaters on February 27, air on National Geographic on March 7, and stream on Disney+ and Hulu on March 8. It will also release in select international territories, including Benelux, France, Mexico, and Lithuania.