BURDEN OF DREAMS — 4K RESTORATION

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Like many filmgoers, Les Blank's unforgettable documentary about Werner Herzog's intrepid efforts making "Fitzcarraldo," in the middle of the Peruvian jungle, introduced me to the maverick of New German Cinema.

You might think of "Fitzcarraldo" as Herzog's "Apocalypse Now."

Herzog has remained an adventurer for the purpose of making documentaries, but he would not return to another jungle for 25 years, when he filmed "Rescue Dawn" in a Laotian hotchpotch.

Little did I realize when I first saw "Burden of Dreams" that both films ("Fitcarraldo" and "Burden of Dreams") premiered at Cannes during the 1982 festival.

What a halcyon year that must have been on the French Riviera.

Since then, "Burden of Dreams" has become an essential companion piece to "Fitzcarraldo."

I had the good fortune to witness the premiere of the 4K restoration of Les Blank's beautifully crafted documentary at Manhattan's Film Forum Cinema in the presence of Blank's co-filmmaker Maureen Gosling, his filmmaker son Harrod Blank, restoration expert Anthony Matt, and audio restoration expert Nick Bergh.

It is an experience I will not soon forget.

The film's newly achieved pristine sound and images, deliver an immediacy to a documentary that carries an editorial weight of unexpected political importance thanks to scriptwriter Michael Goodwin's input.

Like Herzog, Les Blank was an explorer of culture, passion, and truth.

If the metaphor of pulling a steam ship over a mountain sounds like a Sisyphean effort, you are in the right ballpark. Big dreams demand big efforts; the burden is always on the dreamer to follow in their footpaths. Thanks to the late Les Blank and his still vibrant team, you can do just that.

Not Rated. 95 mins.

The 4K restored "Burden of Dreams" is rolling out in cities across America this summer. Catch it if you can!

NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE — SHOCKTOBER!

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Werner Herzog's inspired homage to F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent film is an appropriately chilling telling of the Gothic tale derived from Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Klaus Kinski delivers a delightfully unhinged performance as the bloodthirsty vampire Count Dracula who takes advantage of a real estate broker (Bruno Ganz).

Naturally, the vampire has to travel in his coffin on a ship infested with plague-carrying rats.

Herzog plays with surrealistic compositions that are truly terrifying.

Plague carrying rats are a thematic symbol in this twisted tale of horror.

Isabelle Adjani brings her immutable beauty to bear as the broker's fearful wife, fated to suffer Dracula’s blood-hungry bite.

"Nosferatu" is filled with delightfully scary touches and recreated camera angles from Murnau's original that add a historic context to this masterpiece of horror from one of the New German Cinema's most prolific and enduring members.

Rated PG. 107 mins.

NEKROMANTIK 2 — SHOCKTOBER!

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In the brainwash of modern ideologies it seems apropos that Jörg Buttgereit’s follow-up to his banned 1987 horror film “Nekromantik” would also be prohibited in his mother country of Germany, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, and a slew of other countries. After all, “Nekromantik 2” exploits the same taboo conceit as the original film, namely the erotic and romantic tension between an attractive girl and a corpse. As with the first movie, a real-life boyfriend just gets in the way.

From a filmmaking standpoint Jörg Buttgereit’s potent stab at transgressive cinema is more in line with the early films of John Waters or David Cronenberg than with the litany of directors associated with torture porn movies of the “Saw” franchise ilk. It would be sad to say that by modern standards, the “Nekromantik” movies are tame by comparison; they are not. Jörg Buttgereit’s consciously low budget approach prods the viewer to question obvious aspects of the film’s production. You might take a believable corpse for granted in a big budget film, but be taken by surprise by the apparent authenticity of the dead body getting all of the attention here. Buttgereit’s convincing Grand Guignol trump card might be one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it works like a charm.

The film’s title tells you what you need to know. Romance with the dead is a heavy burden in every way imaginable. Set in the downtrodden streets and apartments of East and West Berlin the story picks up with Rob, the abandoned boyfriend from the first film, committing suicide with a knife while achieving orgasm. Death and sex are united. Enter Monika; a fan of Rob’s former exploits with the dead, to dig up his decomposing green body for some quality time between the sheets. Still, Monika learns that necrophilia isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Her attempted sex act with what’s left of Rob sends her running to the bathroom to vomit. She chops up the body, bags it up, and returns it to its grave, albeit with one set of naughty bits kept behind in the fridge as a souvenir, or l'objet de fetish if you will, or if you won't.

A chance meeting at a local cinema delivers Monika into the loving arms of Mark, a voice-over talent for cheap porn movies. As romance seems to grow between the couple, so too does Monika’s recurrent desire to make it with a cadaver.

It is one thing to show a Hollywood action hero killing an endless army of nameless people, but widely considered beyond the pale to show a character acting out carnal fantasies with a corpse. Sure it’s gross, but is it any worse or better than other popularized filmic expressions of murder or sexual expression? This is one of the essential ideological questions that Buttgereit wrestles with in an ambitious adult horror movie that is as much about the audiences that will never see it as it is about a commercialized culture of war.

German officials have come around to accepting the “Nekromantik” films as works of art, and have since renounced their ban.

Not Rated. 104 mins.