Rescue Dawn
Werner Herzog is an emotionally invested yet anthropologic filmmaker. In both his narrative and documentary works, he frames his characters’ obsessions and goals with startling intimacy while simultaneously highlighting the absurd inanity in their attempts. “Rescue Dawn,” about a pilot captured and kept as a prisoner during the Vietnam War, serves as a particularly potent distillation of Herzog’s impulses. Lead actor Christian Bale will make you believe he was truly a POW.