Purely Joyful Movie!

Best movie ever!

Absolutely the worst movie.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is maybe the statement which describes Swiss ski jumper Walter Steiner the best. Back in the 1970s, he had to start lower than his competition and yet he won easily most of the time. Had he started where they did, it would have been too dangerous as he may have had jumps of around 180 meters. And despite this massive talent, Steiner still had to work as a carpenter, so he would have enough money. If you know a bit about ski jumping (and -flying today), you will understand better about the perspectives. They improved the material so much in the last decades that the current world record stands at over 250 meters. I heard in another documentary that Herzog was ambitious to become a ski jumper himself, but then picked the profession of filmmaker after a serious ski jumping accident by a friend of his. Well, without that friend's crash, we may not have Herzog's excellent contributions to the world of movies today, so all's good I guess.Here, he tries to examine the mind and psychology of somebody who risks his health, maybe his life, so many times. There is certainly a reference about being free as a bird. The competition of ski jumping on the biggest hills is called flying for a reason. The film runs for 44 minutes and Herzog was in his early 30s when this was made. Steiner was in his early 20s. Steiner also got a small cameo in another Herzog film from the same year. It's also funny to see how the athletes had to prepare the skis themselves. Unthinkable today.Maybe this is still the most famous ski jumping documentary, or movie in general, of all time. I thought it was worth a watch for seeing the differences compared to today (I was very interested in it a while ago, but don't watch it today anymore) and because of Herzog's narration which is as strong as ever. The title is slightly pretentious and sometimes he is a bit over the top in terms of drama when he says it is unsure if he will ever jump again and then he jumped the same day, but oh well. I still enjoyed the watch. Recommended.

Herzog can dazzle, challenge. He's one of only two German filmmakers I think are worth watching. Yes, that goes all the way back.Even now, his formula of conflating fiction and truth, documentary and stylized narrative, risk and art still works, even when he's mostly just referencing himself. But he can still do some crazy stuff that doesn't work, at least for this viewer.What we have here is a celebration of an athlete. Herzog tries to make him a warrior of life. There's a supposedly poetic metaphor of his pet bird who had to be shot because he couldn't fly, and that was because its peers picked on it. Get it? There's the bit of him being a sculptor of merit, but when this man speaks of his art and what we dissolves that. And gee, he's German, and we hear a long diatribe about bad judges, not because they are bad, but because they are Yugoslav!No, he's the center of attention here simply because he takes risks. His art is in how far he is willing to go beyond safety. I would have liked a film (or even a sculpture) that this jumper did of Herzog. But this way, this thing we have, is a miss of huge proportions. We need Herzog as a risktaker, not as an admirer of one.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

A very moving portrait of a simple Swiss woodcarver who becomes the world's best ski jumper. The man's life, his motivation, his fears, his hopes: all beautifully relayed in this early masterpiece by Werner Herzog. Here we find a great tribute to Swiss honesty and depth. I know Swiss people who think and feel like Walter Steiner. And then there's that unforgettable story in which Walter Steiner compares himself with a bird he had saved and raised in his youth, a bird he ultimately had to kill to save it from pain and the cruelty of its companions. Only Herzog can give us meditations of that kind. What is Walter Steiner doing these days?

The best of Herzog's shorts, this film documents the mysterious soaring Walter Steiner as he destroys the world ski-flying record in 1974 Yugoslavia.To be fair, this is not really a documentary about Steiner, the Swiss woodcarver and ski-flyer, nor the sport in general, nor the competition and breaking off the world record, but something more intense and esoteric -- a poem of obsession, ecstasy and escape.This mesmerizing piece (set to an airy Popol Vuh soundtrack) is marred only by repetitive shots of ski-jump accidents, Herzog's inserting himself into several shots and his unnecessary and clumsy closing line.