The Ecstatic Truth

Walking To Werner

USA, 2006 (93 minutes)

Thursday June 15, 6:30pm The Neptune

"You can’t push yourself into the future with your feet."

By walking from Munich to Paris in 1974, Werner Herzog believed his dying friend Lotte Eisner would be alive when he got there. Inspired by this gesture, Linas Phillips decided to visit the great director in 2005 by walking from Seattle to Herzog’s home in Los Angeles. Several days into the trip Herzog called and left a message telling Phillips he would be in Thailand. He urged Phillips instead, to walk in search of his own "ecstatic truth." Walking To Werner is the document of this journey. Phillips offers a blissfully entertaining, energetically scored, and well balanced account of the hilarity and suffering he encounters, along with every conceivable roadside character, "I really like humans!" The benevolent presence of Herzog’s periodic commentary seems to almost propel Phillips, 60 days and 1200 miles, while revealing an uncanny parity of thought between the two filmmakers. It’s not Herzog, but an incredible simulation.

"Lets open a window. From these days onward, I can fly."