Grizzly Man Review
By David Kempler
Grizzly, Happy, Sad, Demented Man
"Grizzly Man" is a tale of a man, Timothy Treadwell, obsessed with saving the bears of Alaska. He spent 13 summers living amongst them, videotaping himself and his furry friends the entire time. In his last year there one of the bears killed and ate him, as well as his semi-reluctant girlfriend. Talented director Werner Herzog went through the 100 hours of videotape left behind by Treadwell and crafted a sometimes startling, sometimes beautiful, sometimes exhilarating film. Through interviews with people who knew Treadwell both before and after he began his annual treks to Katmai National Park and Reserve, Herzog crafts a picture of Treadwell that enthralls, puzzles and infuriates us.
Treadwell achieved a modicum of fame along the way, appearing on the David Letterman show. Letterman asked him, "Is it going to happen, that we read a news item one day that you have been eaten by one of these bears?" The television audience laughs loudly while we cringe. "Grizzly Man" is overflowing with similar scenes of Treadwell's death being previewed, most of them shot by himself with his video camera while bears wander around behind him. In some of the shots Treadwell is actually touching the wild bears that he seems bent on treating as pets, or more accurately friends. In fact, some of those interviewed think that Treadwell believed he was a bear. Watching some of the footage it is easy to understand why.
"Grizzly Man" is many things. It contains outstanding nature footage, including some stunning and heartwarming scenes of a fox that befriends him. It is an attempt to try and figure out what really made this man tick, to get inside Treadwell's well-intentioned yet sometimes deluded brain. Above all else, it is Herzog building a case about Treadwell's good points and his mistaken ideas. Even as Herzog disagrees with some of Treadwell's beliefs he shows absolute reverence for the essential goodness and importance of what Treadwell was doing. Herzog walks the thin line of injecting himself into the story and pulls it off beautifully.
One of the unanswered questions is who his girlfriend actually was and why she was there. A guess is that either Herzog did not want to deviate from it being a study of Treadwell or that perhaps some other people related to her did not want her to be a part of this. Whatever the case, it is the only part of "Grizzly Man" that does not feel complete.
Timothy Treadwell was a man with faults. This makes him like everyone else I have ever known. But, Timothy Treadwell was someone who found something that drove him and everyone would best be served by finding what really drives them. No matter that what drove him killed him.
