Any documentary ambitious enough to tackle different facets and implications of the “internet” is going to fall short of something. The single most influential creation of the past few decades has grown into such an impossibly complex and overwhelming force that it would be pure insanity to think one could encapsulate all its infinite intricacies in a 98 minute documentary. Luckily, Werner Herzog’s Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World seems to be aware of its inevitable shortcomings, designed to only trigger different ways of thinking about the internet via a structure which explores multiple angles of this ever so fascinating creation – past, present, and future – in chapters.
Bavarian toned Herzog himself is fairly held back for most of the documentary’s length, sometimes disappointingly so. However, his perfectly timed, awkward, and often comical deadpan comments are almost always effective at sparking further thought from his various subjects, whom are all insightful commentators on the multitude of effects the internet has had on society, both on a micro and macro scale. The documentary as a whole is both positively hopeful and deathly cynical about the internet, and the range of interviewees we meet reflect this. The internet is both a good and bad thing, and it’s treated as such from a happy medium overlooking the triumphs and pitfalls of technology.
The first chapter interestingly takes us inside the very room in which what we now know as the birthplace of “internet”, on the grounds of Stanford University. It’s here inside a drab military-grade machine that the triumphant moment sparked, allowing the first ever online message to be transmitted back in 1969. Visionary computer scientist Leonard Kleinrock is our guide for this section, Herzog humourously lifting his monologue with “Ride of Valkyries” to soften the dizzying mathematical equation that follows, shown to pinpoint the “minimum response time for an optimized network”. There’s enough here to satisfy anyone especially interested in the technical side of the internet, but for the rest, Herzog’s cleverly added anecdotes keeps the engagement flowing along nicely, such as the explanation behind the first word in the documentary’s title: the first host-to-host communication went as far as typing “lo” (meant as “log”) before one of the nodes crashed (hence “Lo and Behold”).
From there it’s a series of successes and failures as the growth of the internet is tracked, showcasing the careers it helped launch, the possibilities it opened, the universe it expanded, and the people it inspired. Slotted in with this is a chapter on the “dark side” of the internet, a deeply disturbing case of trolling in which the family of a deceased girl named Nikki Catsouras are interviewed. In 2006 Nikki was involved in a car accident which took not only took her life but resulted in severe head trauma, of which her father was spared the details when he arrived on the scene. That didn’t stop photos of the crash – and said head trauma – leaking and being intentionally sent to the family with nasty messages for no apparent reason. This was an early case of trolling – a subject which has since been of paramount concern to internet safety – and Herzog takes us straight to the emotional scarring that can occur and briefly looks at it’s long-lasting effects.
While trolling, online bullying and more recently, self-righteous social media shaming, has spiraled out of control since, Herzog does a respectful job containing the issue before moving onto other ways the internet has affected people.
We meet a small group of people hyper-sensitive to electromagnetic fields whom have been forced into a cellular-free zone, their lives radically affected by the internet. This is counterbalanced with a look at the endless pedagogical uses of the internet through insightful time spent with Sebastian Thrun, a robotician and educator who teaches students both online and offline at Stanford University, bringing hopefulness into the picture with the realisation that the better performing students wouldn’t have been given access to the classes if it weren’t for the internet.
Herzog balances cases for and against well while simultaneously setting viewers onto a path of questions about where the internet is taking society and whether or not a team of soccer-playing robots will be able to beat the World Cup winners by 2050: something roboticist Joydeep Biswas feels is entirely possible by 2050.
Though, the documentary’s greatest strength is also its most noticeable weakness. At just 98 minutes long, we don’t get to follow threads long enough from chapter to chapter, with the structure often feeling like a vignette of the highs and lows that make up the sociology of the internet.
What Herzog has provided is a great, entertaining place to start for serious discussions about where the internet has been, how the internet changes or reflects us, and where it is going in the future, what implications this ever-evolving technology has for both the individual and society at large. The rapid change between chapters can be annoying and slightly disengaging at times, but when considered as a well of important information, Herzog has struck gold with Lo and Behold.
Review Score: FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World screened as part of the 63rd annual Sydney Film Festival. There are no remaining sessions but you can find more information about the film HERE.
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