Grizzly Man (2005) directed by Werner Herzog is a documentary about a man named Timothy Treadwell and his mission to protect the bears living in the Grizzly Sanctuary.
The documentary follows Tim in his mission, but sheds light on more than just Tim’s passion for bears and their safety – but also delves into Tim’s personal life, his struggles and his accomplishments.
Tim is primarily portrayed as someone who is very eccentric, someone who is sure of themselves and someone who is extremely passionate about what they do. As the film progresses and we are given insight to not only peoples’ opinions about Tim, but also some of Tim’s video entries – we realised that these qualities may not be as one dimensional as they seem.
We learn that Tim had a troubled past with substance abuse and how these animals helped him recover from the dark spiral of dependance. However, Tim’s passion for bears and animals is suggested as escapism as the documentary progresses.
The voice over, who is both the director and a friend of Tim’s – acts as the voice of reason within the film and balances out the eccentric ramblings of Tim with rationality and logic. However, the voice over is extremely condescending about Tim’s mission and his ‘connection’ to these wild animals.
Tim truly believes that he is the ‘spiritual warrior’ of the Grizzly Sanctuary – but many of the people who associated with Tim, think otherwise. Although he had a very eccentric personality – people interviewed often said that Tim ‘got what he deserved’ and that tragedy was that his girlfriend died with him.
I found this quite sad, as the tragedy of the documentary is that nobody seems to recognise Tim’s genuine personality and genuine emotional connection he feels toward the animals. He had definitely figured something out as he had lived for 13 years amongst bears – people didn’t acknowledge his intelligence and his emotional capacity for these animals.
Tim saw the bears as kindred spirits, but as the director bluntly states (elucidating the rhetoric component of the documentary), he sees the bears as being ‘disinterested’, ‘bored’ and ‘hungry’.