Fever Dreams: Two weeks in the jun­gle with Wern­er Herzog

“That’s El Tunche, the evil spir­it.” Wel­come to the jun­gle – specif­i­cal­ly the Inkater­ra Reserve in Peru, Madre de Díos riv­er, Ama­zon Basin. Things here are strange by nature; giant snails, night mon­keys, vio­lent bush­mas­ter snakes. Turn your back and a taran­tu­la might creep into your shad­ow. It’s a myth­i­cal place, with tribes hid­den between the dense rain­for­est and impass­able jun­gle. The cli­mate is the same that Wern­er Her­zog endured dur­ing his tumul­tuous pro­duc­tion of Fitz­car­ral­do 36 years ago, and the same he will share with 48 emerg­ing film­mak­ers over the next two weeks. This is my per­son­al account, for what it’s worth.

Day 0

Being from the Baltic north of New­cas­tle-Upon-Tyne, I decide to arrive ear­ly to accli­ma­tise. Three days in Lima then the jun­gle town of Puer­to Mal­don­a­do to meet up with the oth­er work­shop­pers and begin our jour­ney. The first wave arrive and we take a motorised canoe up the riv­er to base camp. Vines drape over­head from 300-year-old Lapuna trees, bush­es rus­tle with crit­ters and a thick wave of humid­i­ty dulls the sens­es. Wave two arrives with whis­pers that Wern­er may appear tonight. He doesn’t. He just got back from Japan and needs rest. He’ll see us tomor­row, 05:30 sharp.

Day 1

Her­zog arrives and takes the time to shake every hand. He informs us we’ll all make a film, and that the theme is ​‘fever dreams in the jun­gle’. The first two days will be loca­tion scout­ing and cast­ing port­fo­lios. A her­culean effort from host staff Black Fac­to­ry Cin­e­ma has secured nine loca­tions and more than 200 locals to appear in the films. We vis­it the native Ese Ejas tribe, are greet­ed by their chief then giv­en a demon­stra­tion of trib­al cus­toms. It’s like a BBC doc­u­men­tary, except every­one has Direct TV. Then we’re back to base so the boss can watch Bay­ern Munich get knocked out of the Cham­pi­ons League.

Day 2

More loca­tion scout­ing – first up is the idyl­lic Lake San­doval and then its back to Puer­to Mal­don­a­do. San­doval is a one hour walk into the for­est but Her­zog man­ages it no prob­lem – not bad for a 75-year-old. In town I have a lead of my own and want to get going – I ask if I can film the next day; the organ­is­ers tell me I have to okay it with Wern­er. I explain to him my plan before delv­ing into the ideas for my film. He stops me. ​“So long as it’s not soft­core pornog­ra­phy, I don’t care.”

Day 3

There’s a rou­tine now and peo­ple are begin­ning to get to the work. Two things about the jun­gle: it’s always damp, and it’s nev­er qui­et. Sleep is a byprod­uct of exhaus­tion. Tonight I’m stay­ing in town so I can film at sun­set on my secret lagoon – the boats can’t nav­i­gate the riv­er after dark. My two non-pro­fes­sion­al actors and I go piran­ha fish­ing on then head back to town to fry and eat them. Aside from the guts, you eat the full fish, so I enjoy my first taste of fried piran­ha heads.

Day 4

Back at base camp, I’m iso­lat­ed from the group today as they’re begin­ning while I’m already going. In my head, if I fin­ish faster than oth­ers, I’ll get more feed­back from Her­zog (some­thing I’ll lat­er live to regret). I spend the day in the canopy above the jun­gle try­ing to film Howler mon­keys. Reg­u­lar day in the jungle.

Day 5

On the fifth day, an epiphany: Wern­er Her­zog isn’t Wern­er Her­zog – he’s Wern­er Her­zog. He’s the myth­i­cal film­mak­er. It’s a per­for­mance. You have to break down the per­for­mance or all you’ll get is weird and won­der­ful say­ings, such as ​“It is the job of the film­mak­er to jump out of the win­dow into the boat even if he has no con­fi­dence there is water beneath it.” When you get past the guard the guy is remark­ably atten­tive. He focus­es on what you want, tells you what you need to hear.

Day 6

Anoth­er day of film­ing; I’m between the town and the jun­gle. The char­ac­ters are in the town, but I came to the jun­gle to make a film in the jun­gle. My lead actor is a bak­er whose sto­ry is one of tragedy and tri­umph. Her hus­band was a guide who drowned in the riv­er, leav­ing her with two small chil­dren. She worked hard, she over­came her grief, she found love again. I film in the bak­ery where the ladies work­ing there tell it straight. ​“You all work so hard! It’s amaz­ing,” I say. ​“You for­got to say we’re beau­ti­ful, also,” is their response. Tomor­row I hope to wrap up filming.

Day 7

One of the very first things Her­zog told the group was that dysen­tery was a badge of hon­our. He is an immer­sive film­mak­er – his sto­ries take time, in exot­ic loca­tions with clash­es against local author­i­ties. He is a rebel with a hobo heart. My efforts to emu­late this in some way left me bed rid­den today with explod­ing insides. It’s not sexy but it’s the truth. I tell him lat­er and he laughs. ​“Good!”

Day 8

Today was my most excit­ing film­ing day. I began with two Machiguen­ga, film­ing a hunt­ing demon­stra­tion and con­ver­sa­tion. Machiguen­ga can­not be trans­lat­ed, even in Inkater­ra – I’ll need to find an expert some­where else. Her­zog told me not to go – he wants us to fin­ish, not to com­pli­cate the process, but I knew if it was him he would’ve done the exact same thing. Then I caught what­ev­er boat I could to Puer­to to get the last shots with my actors. It all goes to plan and I’m relieved – now I’ve got to edit a lot of footage in two lan­guages I can’t speak.

Day 9

For the first time I get dis­tance from the work and begin to think on the expe­ri­ence. My fel­low film­mak­ers have come from across the world – the UK and US, Koso­vo, Colom­bia, Aus­tralia and Sin­ga­pore. Quite unbe­liev­ably there’s not a bad egg amongst the lot. Every­one is smart, fun­ny and on the same page. Maybe it’s the heat, but we’re not a group of film­mak­ers, we’re a fam­i­ly. A team. Every­one is there for each oth­er with the mad Ger­man in the mid­dle steer­ing us all to project com­ple­tion. This is tru­ly once in a lifetime.

Day 10

Every night we gath­er for what Wern­er calls ​‘camp­fire’, where he answers ques­tions and tells sto­ries. He’s talked about every­thing save for eat­ing his boot (why did we nev­er ask him about that?) but the most inter­est­ing things he says are when he gets sen­ti­men­tal about life. He’s old, mar­ried and in love. He’s done it all and thirsts for more. Two things stick in mind – first, he talks often about how he’s just here to help the next gen­er­a­tion take over. Wern­er Her­zog wants to inspire the next gen­er­a­tion of Wern­er Herzog’s. Sec­ond is his phi­los­o­phy on tak­ing a jour­ney – he once walked the bor­der of Ger­many in polit­i­cal protest, but now says he would only take such a jour­ney to ask a woman to mar­ry him. Wern­er Her­zog is odd­ly sen­ti­men­tal – both mad sci­en­tist and romantic.

Day 11

I com­plete my film and show it to the group and Her­zog. ​“I don’t like this new age stuff.” Well shit, Her­zog didn’t like my film. In fact, of the 48, mine is the one he would specif­i­cal­ly indi­cate his dis­like for (thanks to Samir for point­ing this out). I don’t real­ly care. It’s my work; some peo­ple like it, oth­er don’t. You don’t attempt to emu­late Ter­rence Mal­ick with­out expect­ing some back­lash. If I can’t be Herzog’s favourite, there’s a badge of hon­our in being his least favourite. I like to think he would agree.

Day 12

We spend the last day run­ning the gaunt­let of 45 films, about three or four hours of cin­e­ma. The work is a high qual­i­ty of film­mak­ing con­sid­er­ing we’re here with what we have in a place that is not made for it. Some of the films are breath­tak­ing – brave, weird, per­son­al. Her­zog says it’s inspir­ing, I think he’s right. We end the last day with a jun­gle par­ty: bon­fires, music, pis­co sours and a hap­py-drunk Her­zog. It’s been a whirl­wind, an adven­ture – a fever dream in the jungle.

I went to the jun­gle for a once in a life­time expe­ri­ence where I hoped to learn from a mas­ter film­mak­er, but won the lot­tery by shar­ing the expe­ri­ence with such a remark­able group of peo­ple. Her­zog – an opti­mist who believes human­i­ty is doomed – inspired. I could say every bud­ding film­mak­er should attend a work­shop in the Ama­zon basin with a cin­e­mat­ic leg­end but that’s a giv­en – so instead maybe go on a jour­ney on foot, or jump out of a win­dow even when uncer­tain of safe­ty. Chase your fever dreams wher­ev­er they lead you – he opened the door so we can follow.