Heart of Glass

Next to Aguirre, Wrath of God and Nosferatu, this may be Werner Herzog's finest achievement. Rumor has it that he forced all of his actors to perform under hypnosis which, along with his brand of photography, lends to an other-worldly quality to the film. With the prolonged opening sequence, Herzog manages to hypnotize his audience and string them through as he does his cast. It's about a small, rural village that falls into chaos when their master glass maker dies without revealing the secret to a very valuable formula for making ruby glass. There are few things as beautiful and interesting as glass blowing. It's a very Herzogian film -- oblique and hypnotic, and it even has a mystic cow-herder.