‘Precautions against Fanatics’: Werner Herzog’s absurd comedy
Ever since he started working as a director, it has been clear to all film fans that nobody has a sense of humour quite like Werner Herzog. From hypnotising chickens to working with Nicolas Cage, the German auteur has repeatedly transcended the boundaries of his craft while searching for images that haven’t been completely corrupted by modernity. In doing so, Herzog has often managed to capture revelatory insights about us and the world around us.
Herzog’s entire filmography is full of courageous ventures, including the time he risked his own life to make a documentary about an active volcano. On other well-known projects like Fitzcarraldo, he took on near-impossible production challenges that pushed him to the brink of insanity and almost resulted in complete self-destruction. However, time and again, the pioneering filmmaker has made it out of some of the craziest situations with absolutely inimitable artistic masterpieces.
While Herzog’s explorations of other species, such as chickens and penguins, are quite well-known, one of his early works also featured horses. Titled Precautions Against Fanatics, the 1969 film contains interviews with horse trainers who have their own eccentric approaches to their job. The name of the short is inspired by the first character in the sketch, a casual fan who voluntarily devotes his time to the stables in order to protect the horses.
Structured like a documentary, Herzog’s fascination with the absurdity of human obsessions and their insanity is evident in this project: the first of his career that he shot in colour. When Herzog talks about chickens and penguins, he is obviously interested in their behavioural traits, but that isn’t the case here. It’s the humans who are the strange animals on display this time, managing to make the animals look far more intelligent in comparison.
In the hilarious vignettes spliced together by Herzog, one trainer reveals that he prepares his horse for the race by making it walk around a tree for 36 hours, while another one claims he indulges in “doping” because he feeds his horse garlic. Even though bizarre superstitions and rituals are quite common throughout sporting history, Precautions Against Fanatics exposes the comedy inherent in our fragile and illogical belief systems.
It’s clear that the real fanatics are the trainers themselves, and that’s who the horses actually need protection from. Investigating the intense nature of human obsession and its funny manifestations, Herzog attempts to understand a part of human psychology that still hasn’t made itself transparent to scientists. By blurring the lines between documentary filmmaking and comedic frameworks, Precautions Against Fanatics becomes a uniquely Herzogian absurdist gem.
Watch the film below.
