Lo and Behold, Rever­ies of the Con­nect­ed World

If the inter­net were to be for­mal­ly recre­at­ed as a film, it might resem­ble Wern­er Herzog’s 10-chap­tered spi­dery info­verse of a movie. Whether infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed art­less­ly on its own terms makes for a com­mend­able view­ing expe­ri­ence is all a mat­ter of taste. Noth­ing nar­rat­ed in the endear­ing dead­pan of Wern­er Her­zog could ever be dry. His curiosi­ties regard­ing the rid­dles of the con­nect­ed world are artic­u­lat­ed with pierc­ing intel­li­gence and an imp­ish rel­ish for the absurd. Lis­ten­ing to his inter­pre­ta­tion of our time’s great­est unknown known intox­i­cates and breeds an appetite for a more per­son­al per­spec­tive that nev­er ful­ly comes into being.

For Herzog’s com­ments – expressed in nar­ra­tion and ques­tions – are just the join­ing stitch­es. The bulk of the mate­r­i­al is inter­views regard­ing all fron­tiers of the inter­net. Her­zog plays intel­lec­tu­al explor­er, notch­ing up points of view like a kid in a cere­bral can­dy store. The sub­jects are fas­ci­nat­ing, yet their words some­times come with an arti­fi­cial sense of won­der. The struc­ture of Lo and Behold… begins and ends with the deci­sion to cre­ate 10 chap­ters. There is lim­it­ed sup­port to uphold the teem­ing mass of indi­vid­ual intel­li­gences. The result is a litany of stand­alone plea­sures and stim­u­lants. Herzog’s focus begins with the birth of the inter­net at UCLA in 1969, when every­one online was list­ed in a slen­der directory.

It ends by spec­u­lat­ing as to what the future holds, and how soci­ety would cope if every­thing just shut down. He explores the dark side of the net, inter­view­ing those in rehab for inter­net addic­tion, as well as a fam­i­ly scarred by the inhu­man­i­ty of anony­mous trolls. There is a vis­it to Green Bank, a dis­con­nect­ed safe haven (evoca­tive of Todd Haynes’ 1995 film Safe) for peo­ple whose bod­ies are made sick by the cel­lu­lar sig­nals and radio waves. Herzog’s super­pow­er is his abil­i­ty to extract far-reach­ing sound­bites from sub­jects, emerg­ing with the heart of sto­ries suf­fi­cient­ly com­plex and strange to fill their own fea­ture films.

Nor­mal peo­ple made extra­or­di­nary by their expe­ri­ences are mixed in with spe­cial­ists. Space-mag­nate Elon Musk, counter-cyber-espi­onage oper­a­tive Shawn Car­pen­ter, and one of the world’s most infa­mous hack­ers, Kevin Mit­nick, are among the count­less indi­vid­u­als con­tribut­ing to this thick gum­bo of anec­dotes, opin­ions and infor­ma­tion. The den­si­ty of the con­tent sug­gests the ben­e­fit of repeat vis­its. And yet…

Even after two view­ings, it’s too much. The first time, the focus remained on rev­er­ent­ly try­ing to hoover up each burst of infor­ma­tion, tak­ing Werner’s humor­ous tid­bits as a source of uproar­i­ous glee. By the sec­ond view­ing, it feels like this film has sac­ri­ficed depth for breath, and arcs for parts. What ini­tial­ly seems like an over owing cup to be returned to and drunk from repeat­ed­ly, feels more like wide­ly spaced-out thim­bles of water – refresh­ing ini­tial­ly but not sub­stan­tial enough to quench thirst for a sat­is­fy­ing nar­ra­tive about the con­nect­ed world.