"Mein liebster Feind" or "My Best Fiend" is a West German documentary film from 1999 and writer and director closed the old millennium on a very personal and very convincing note with this 95-minute film here. The main character of this film is occasionally listed as well in the title. It is the blonde acting infant terrible Klaus Kinski. He had already been dead for five years when this movie was made and it is somehow Herzog's farewell to his longtime collaborator. The duo worked together on a handful of film's that are widely considered among the finest from Herzog's and Kinski's bodies of work. Watching this film we find out that Herzog also brought a certain deal of insanity himself that helped him with coping of the character that was Kinski. And of course, Herzog also brought a great deal of dedication and this becomes obvious in several scenes here. One would be when Herzog tells us in one scene how Kinski was so angry he was about to leave the set and not return in the middle of filmmaking, when Herzog grabbed a gun and told Kinski he would not get very far before Herzog puts eight bullets in Kinski's head and one in his own. This part describes the documentary very well. A lot of it is about the creative clashing between the two protagonists and how insanity was always very close to genius in their cases. Herzog plays a big role of course as he is narrating this one and his fate is linked closely to Kinski's, but you never feel that this documentary is about anybody else than Klaus Kinski.
Herzog travels to all kinds of places where he and Kinski worked together in the past, especially film locations, but also to places that just united him in a different manner. One example for the latter would be the apartment in the very first scenes. Herzog tells us how he kept verbally abusing everybody in there when he lived in this apartment and how he destroyed the bathroom in his rage and attacked a journalist. The journalist called Kinski excellent and Kinski lost it and attacked the man saying he was not excellent he was God-like. So yeah, this is a recurring theme in here. Kinski was an egomaniac of the worst kind and Herzog keeps mentioning scenario in which Kinski proved it again and again. There are also interviews with people Kinski acted together in Herzog's films, such as Eva Mattes and Claudia Cardinale. These two describe a very different Klaus Kinski, a sensitive, fragile man who was very shy at times. Maybe this is what Kinski was like towards his female co-actors. But it somehow fits and I almost never had the expression that Herzog or anybody else was making things up in here although Herzog easily could have taking into account how a great storyteller he is.
All in all, this was a tremendous documentary I think. It told us in detail about the extremes that made Kinski such a unique character and actor. And you have to decide for yourself if this was a good or bad thing. Nobody probably could have told it better than Herzog because of all the time the two spent together and the film is a mix of current (well from 1999) video recordings and old recordings that show Kinski in action, for example how he attacks crew members or also scenes from his one-man stage performance as Jesus. We find out that Kinski often did not manage to get out of character in time for future projects and the attacks I just mentioned frequently happened when he did not learn his lines properly, so he would try to blame other uninvolved people to hope nobody recognizes his failures. Of course, this documentary was made before these accusations about pedophilia and incest from one of his daughters, which put the character into an entirely different light if these are true. I think it is impossible to separate the private person Klaus Kinski from the actor Klaus Kinski, but maybe this is the reason that allowed him to reach great high and give stunning performances again and again. I don't know. But I do know that I highly recommend these slightly under 100 minutes. A must-see for everybody who likes Kinski and/or Herzog.
Herzog travels to all kinds of places where he and Kinski worked together in the past, especially film locations, but also to places that just united him in a different manner. One example for the latter would be the apartment in the very first scenes. Herzog tells us how he kept verbally abusing everybody in there when he lived in this apartment and how he destroyed the bathroom in his rage and attacked a journalist. The journalist called Kinski excellent and Kinski lost it and attacked the man saying he was not excellent he was God-like. So yeah, this is a recurring theme in here. Kinski was an egomaniac of the worst kind and Herzog keeps mentioning scenario in which Kinski proved it again and again. There are also interviews with people Kinski acted together in Herzog's films, such as Eva Mattes and Claudia Cardinale. These two describe a very different Klaus Kinski, a sensitive, fragile man who was very shy at times. Maybe this is what Kinski was like towards his female co-actors. But it somehow fits and I almost never had the expression that Herzog or anybody else was making things up in here although Herzog easily could have taking into account how a great storyteller he is.
All in all, this was a tremendous documentary I think. It told us in detail about the extremes that made Kinski such a unique character and actor. And you have to decide for yourself if this was a good or bad thing. Nobody probably could have told it better than Herzog because of all the time the two spent together and the film is a mix of current (well from 1999) video recordings and old recordings that show Kinski in action, for example how he attacks crew members or also scenes from his one-man stage performance as Jesus. We find out that Kinski often did not manage to get out of character in time for future projects and the attacks I just mentioned frequently happened when he did not learn his lines properly, so he would try to blame other uninvolved people to hope nobody recognizes his failures. Of course, this documentary was made before these accusations about pedophilia and incest from one of his daughters, which put the character into an entirely different light if these are true. I think it is impossible to separate the private person Klaus Kinski from the actor Klaus Kinski, but maybe this is the reason that allowed him to reach great high and give stunning performances again and again. I don't know. But I do know that I highly recommend these slightly under 100 minutes. A must-see for everybody who likes Kinski and/or Herzog.