Grizzly Man

"In the summer of 1990, Timothy Treadwell ventured into the Alaskan wilderness to live among its grizzly bears. He returned yearly, until his 2003 death (with girlfriend Amie Huguenard) at the claws of one of the creatures he sought to befriend, to protect and, on some level, to become. "Grizzly Man" is a brilliant portrait of adventure, activism, obsession and potential madness that ranks among helmer Werner Herzog's strongest work. Co-production of Lions Gate Films and Discovery Channel looks to receive the widest distribution of any Herzog pic in years and should see brisk theatrical biz before its fall 2005 television premiere..."

"German film-maker Herzog's eerie and operatic features (Heart of Glass, Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo among others) are among the most significant and magnificent works of the 70s and 80s. He has also shown himself to be a master of the non-fiction film, bringing a guilelessly quizzical sensibility to bear on subjects both arcane (Bells from the Deep, about Russian mysticism) and frighteningly immediate (the destruction left by Saddam's withdrawal from Kuwait, in the awe-inspiring Lessons of Darkness)..."

"In some ways, Grizzly Man is the anti-March Of The Penguins. For last year's kiddie-centric avian doc-blockbuster, the filmmakers happily anthropomorphised their cute subjects; in Werner Herzog's astonishing documentary, the director insists via his idiosyncratic, bellow-whispered voiceover that the last thing we should be doing is treating animals like people. That's what failed actor-turned-celebrity bear expert Timothy Treadwell did, and it t both he and girlfriend Amie Huguenard brutally killed and eaten..."

"If March Of The Penguins was the cuddly side of natural history, Grizzly Man is all teeth and claws - and that's just the conservationists. For 13 years, bear fan Timothy Treadwell spent the summer camping with grizzlies in the Alaskan wilderness until with tragic inevitability he and his girlfriend were slaughtered in a ferocious bear attack. German auteur Werner Herzog pieces together the remarkable footage Treadwell left behind into a superb portrait of a fractured obsessive living literally on the edge..."