Where the Green Ants Dream

R

1984

1h 40m

Drama

List

80%

5 Reviews

Tomatometer

61%

500+ Ratings

Audience Score

A surveying team led by Australian geologist Lance Hackett (Bruce Spence) is setting off subterranean explosions deep in the outback, searching for possible uranium mining sites. Hackett's work is interrupted by Aboriginals Miliritbi (Wandjuk Marika) and Dayipu (Roy Marika), who claim that green ants dream underneath this land, and, if the insects' slumbers are interrupted, the world will come to an end. The dispute between the two sides becomes both a court case and a philosophical debate.

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dave s

Director Werner Herzog's fascination with the natural world is well documented and Where the Green Ants Dream is no exception. The film, set in rural Australia, focuses on a land dispute between a mining company and local aboriginals, who believe that the land is sacred and any disruption to it will ultimately result in the destruction of humanity. Filled with expansive pans, it is a beautifully shot film that effectively captures the vast expanse of land that is so revered by its inhabitants, rendering the dialogue, which is minimal throughout, almost irrelevant. The courtroom scenes do tend to detract from the overall power of the movie, but it remains a scathing indictment of the cost of progress.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

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Audience Member

Herzog's self-reflective depiction of the perhaps fatal clash of humanity is both intriguing and treats the material with utmost seriousness,

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/14/23

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Audience Member

This little film completely caught me off guard thinking it was a documentary but ultimately a low key drama filmed all in rural South Australia. The story of a mining companies struggle to move forward with the indigenous community due to their fierce love of the land to be mined. All through rather low key & acting excluding the indigenous was a bit so so. It's an interesting sleeper of a film & great to see if you are a fan of the infamous Werner Herzog.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/31/23

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Audience Member

Thought-provoking; Herzog leaves the viewer with haunting images of the faces of the Aborigines. Worth your attention.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

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Audience Member

This is one of Werner Herzog's best films. Only partially based on fact, it nevertheless conjures a narrative force that feels completely authentic. Set in a stark Australian outback that is yet beautiful to behold, he paints a tale of an Anglo mining corporation exploiting the Aborigines' land in search of uranium. Yeah. Sounds like the basis for Hollywood's average, hackneyed, bleeding-heart political manifesto but everything Herzog does with his set-up works against that grain. The likable geologist/worker ant (if you'll pardon the expression) for the corporation, played by Bruce Spence, is the nominal protagonist and not unsympathetic to the Aborigines. He gets one early scene on the telephone with a woman he's obviously interested in, and maybe we see her later in a courtroom sequence. I wasnt sure. No development there! Herzog had other things on his mind, and tawdry romance wasn't one of them. Instead we get spellbinding moments like Spences encounter with another Caucasian who expounds on the green ants that are the object of the natives recalcitrance against the miners. The scientific details may or may not be malarkey, but damn it all if its not fascinating. Even the long courtroom scene, where Herzogs typically unconventional blocking avoids the stagnant clichés of so many such scenes in previous films, keeps our interest despite a predictable outcome. Then theres the matter of an airplane that catches the fancy of one of the Aboriginals, and we think were in for another case of nativist sabotage as in Herzogs previous masterpiece, Fitzcarraldo, but not quite. Or how about the old lady who sits beneath a parasol outside one of the mines, a can of dog food at her feet, waiting for her cherished pet who went missing? And in one scene, Spences character kneels before her and describes to her a dream of his that has to be heard to be believed. Or a moment when the whites corral a couple of those backwards natives into a modern-day elevator, and Oops, they might be there for a while. When this scene takes place the first time it gets a laugh. When it is reprised a few moments later it cuts even deeper and becomes just plain sad. And then there are the stock images of tornadoes tearing through Oklahoma. They seem to have absolutely nothing to do with the main action in Australia, and yet the familiar, wispy shapes of those dust clouds after each detonation of the mining companys explosives on the Aborigines land got me to thinking Suffice. There was nothing too obvious or drawn-out about this picture. It kept me in a state of perpetual wonder and engaged right up to its closing shot. Wholeheartedly recommended to those in search of something different. (And if youre not looking for something different WHY THE HELL ARENT YOU?)

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/14/23

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Audience Member

Nothing special about this Herzog film.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

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Werner Herzog

Director

Bruce Spence

Lance Hackett

Norman Kaye

Baldwin Ferguson

Wandjuk Marika

Miliritbi

Roy Marika

Dayipu

Ray Barrett

Cole

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Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

Werner Herzog believes in the voodoo of locations, in the possibility that if he shoots a movie in the right place and at the right time, the reality of the location itself will seep into the film and make it more real.

Rated: 3/4

Oct 23, 2004

Full Review

Vincent Canby

New York Times

As a conventional narrative, it's extremely simple and fairly slapdash, but it's never simple-minded, being too full of moments of inspired craziness and wisdom.

Rated: 3/5

Aug 30, 2004

Full Review

Dave Kehr

Chicago Reader

Made in Australia, this effort is a slight, by-the-numbers rehash of Herzog's increasingly offensive noble savage theme.

Jan 1, 2000

Full Review

Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

The director's eye shifts from the indigenous totem poles being celebrated to the less waxen eccentrics swarming in the sidelines

Sep 25, 2009

Full Review

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Rated: 4/5

Jul 7, 2005

Full Review

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Synopsis

A surveying team led by Australian geologist Lance Hackett (Bruce Spence) is setting off subterranean explosions deep in the outback, searching for possible uranium mining sites. Hackett's work is interrupted by Aboriginals Miliritbi (Wandjuk Marika) and Dayipu (Roy Marika), who claim that green ants dream underneath this land, and, if the insects' slumbers are interrupted, the world will come to an end. The dispute between the two sides becomes both a court case and a philosophical debate.

Director: Werner Herzog
Producer: Samantha Krishna Naidu, Willi Segler
Screenwriter: Werner Herzog, Bob Ellis
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 19, 2017
Runtime: 1h 40m

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