Mark Reviews Movies: NOMAD: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BRUCE CHATWIN

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 27, 2020

Taking inspiration from and shining a light on his friend Bruce Chatwin, director Werner Herzog travels to places of fascination and study for the late writer in Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin. The film is neither a biography nor an in-depth examination of Chatwin's work, which certainly undermines Herzog's attempt to understand the specifics of the author's research, philosophy, and influence. Throughout this free-flowing documentary, though, Herzog's admiration, respect, and love for his subject is always present.

Both Chatwin and Herzog loved to travel, although their careers only led to several meetings before the former's death at the age of 48 in 1989. Before any of those meetings, though, each man knew of and admired the other's work.

Chatwin devoted his studies to pre-history, specifically ancient beasts and the lives of nomadic tribes. Of key importance to these concentrations were Patagonia, Argentina, a trip inspired by a relative's claim of having a piece of brontosaurus skin (It actually belonged to a giant sloth) and which inspired the writing of his first book In Patagonia, and Australia, where he researched the ageless tradition of songs for the indigenous peoples of the country for his 1987 book The Songlines.

Herzog travels to these places, as well as Chatwin's beloved Black Mountains in Wales (where the director interviews the writer's widow at the stunning ruins of the Llanthony Priory, a place of the couple's early courtship), and conducts his own studies—into Chatwin's life, research, and writings and into the topics that so fascinated his subject. The film, divided into chapters that mostly follow a chronology of Chatwin's life, isn't formless, but its almost stream-of-consciousness approach does keep us at a certain distance from the man and his ideas.

On the other hand, what else, really, do we expect from Herzog? Along the way, the filmmaker processes his own thoughts on the themes of Chatwin's work, which is, as one anticipates, consistently engaging.

Despite the director repeatedly stating that he is not the protagonist of this film, Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin also and most potently becomes the act of Herzog processing his grief over the loss of a colleague in the study of the human experience, a "kindred spirit," and a friend. He doesn't say as much during the course of the film, but this documentary's methods and very existence show it to be true.

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