This starts out looking like a more or less standard TV documentary about a ski-jumper. Over time, however, it somehow gets stranger and stranger, until the ending, that somehow, incomprehensibly, left me totally out of breath.

The film works on so many levels: It's a fascinating portrayal of the celebrated ski-jumper Steiner, but it's also an amazing look at the plain aesthetics of ski-jumping, with extreme slow-motion pictures showing the jumpers' fears and ecstasy at a very profound level. In addition, there is also something in this film that's simply very hard or impossible to define, something about man itself, something about longing and - perhaps the most advanced of human emotions - pity.

How much of this portrayal that actually reflects Steiner's personality, and how much of it that reflects Herzog's, is hard to tell. But that's the only catch. Those looking for Herzog classics should not think that this movie can be missed because it's a 45-minute TV documentary. Apart from pictures of some nasty ski-jumping falls, it's not really disturbing to the extent that put me slightly off when watching for example Aguirre and Even Dwarfs Started Small - so it could from my point of view overall be the best of the many Herzog movies I've seen so far.

This film is about Walter Steiner, a Swiss ski jumper whose specialization is ski flying--the longest of all the ski jumping events. Back in the 1970s, he was a major star--with an Olympic silver medal and two world championships.

Werner Herzog and his crew traveled to three different places to make this 45 minute documentary--two in Germany and the big event in Yugoslavia. It's interesting that Steiner ended up winning the event and setting a world record here--as other athletes COULD have won. For example, it's pretty easy to get knocked out of the contest due to injury (and Steiner does take a pretty nasty fall in this one)--and the film would have ended up focusing on a good ski flyer who lost! But, in the end, Steiner pulls it off and wins by a very comfortable margin.

The film is very interesting to see because of the nice camera-work. Even when seen today, you marvel at some of the slow-motion closeup shots. How did they get these shots so well considering that Steiner is flying very high and very fast. It is interesting that Steiner's world record of 166 meters is actually WAY less than the record today--which stands at 246.5 meters! Worth seeing and well made.

In this 45 minute documentary, Werner Herzog takes a seemingly ordinary subject matter (ski jumping) and turns it into something profound: a meditation on life and death and man's desire to be the best, no matter the consequences. It follows the career of champion ski jumper Walter Steiner, who's determined to win big at a contest in the former Yugoslavia.

Despite the scant running time this is a moving and reflective viewing experience that seeks to give an insight into a man living on the edge. It does so ably, and in addition Herzog includes a number of beautiful images of this chap jumping through the air in extreme slow motion, with the viewer waiting to see whether he makes or breaks it. It's a wonderful visual experience, and another example of Herzog's skill as a documentary film-maker.