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The White Diamond
2004 · Film · documentary · 90 min
Directed by Werner Herzog
This 2004 documentary by Werner Herzog diaries the struggle of a passionate English inventor to design and test a unique airship during its maiden flight above the jungle canopy.
4 positivefrom 4 commenters
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4 comments on Hacker News
There's a documentary called "White Diamond", filmed alongside her prep for her "Showgirl: Homecoming" (the previously-cancelled leg of her "Showgirl" tour, after she had to interrupt it for cancer treatment). Much of it is of course focused on Minogue herself and her battle with the disease & return to form, but it also has behind the scenes content on how the show itself is put together, including some footage in the server room.
I've seen similar reporting here and there in TV coverage of her show prep and so on, after an accidental viewing of "White Diamond" made me an interested party.
PBS NOVA Ben Franklin's Balloons is a good look re-creating these balloons - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3979848/
If you're more into the present day -
Pedal-Powered Airship - Speed with Guy Martin S03E02 - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6500686/
If you're feeling trippy, Werner Herzog The White Diamond - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435776/
My favourite of his is Lessons of Darkness. It is fairly uncategorizable; it can hardly be called a documentary.
The film roams across the oil fields of Kuwait, left burning after the first Gulf War. Steadycam helicopter shots glide over landscapes set to the haunting music of Mahler, Arvo Pärt and others (there is, of course, some Wagner). There's little narration; the few fragments are abstract and prophetical. The whole film is a rather disturbing tone poem about a futuristic, burning apocalypse. It's fantastic.
The White Diamond [2] is also great. The subject matter (an attempt to fly a special air balloon to study the rain forests of Guyana) is interesting, but takes second or third place to the beautiful photography of the forests and the superb, eerie music of Ernst Reijseger, whose film music was released as the album Requiem for a Dying Planet [3], and a couple of Herzogian moments as he gets sidetracked by a weird native (whose philosophical monologue may have been scripted by Herzog) and a waterfall.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lessons_of_Darkness
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Diamond
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS1wabo4rXk&index=2&list=PLCOIBtqK1bke_WhtnZMLbOYRjUl6ib8me
Werner Herzog has made a number of excellent documentaries. Here are a few of them with brief summaries.
Lessons of Darkness: the aftermath of the first Gulf War in Kuwait.
Little Dieter Wants to Fly: A young German emigrates to the USA, become a Navy pilot, and is shot down in Vietnam. He escapes and lives to tell the tale. Herzog later re-made this as Rescue Dawn, but the original version is better.
Encounters at the End of the World: Herzog travels to Antarctica.
My Best Fiend: Herzog recounts his movie-making with Klaus Kinski. (For the counterpoint, read Kinski's autobiography, "Kinski Uncut.)
The White Diamond: an experimental zeppelin flies over Guyana.
Grizzly Man: Bear aficionado gets too close and is eaten. Herzog assembled this one from the aficonado's footage and narrates.
Out of all of these, I'd rate "Dieter" as the best.