This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

In 18th century rural Bavaria, a renowned glassblower dies, taking the secret of his popular ruby glass to his grave. The young master of the glass works is the de facto ruler of the village on account of the work his factory provides the locals, he obsessively seeks the answer to the mystery of the ruby glass.When I first saw this movie, I had literally no idea that the vast majority of the cast had been hypnotised by director Werner Herzog before shooting their scenes. It's one of these situations which is common with Herzog, where knowing about what he was doing behind the scenes is instrumental in appreciating the film itself. The dazed performances of the cast are put into some kind of perspective with foresight that is for sure. I think one of the ideas behind the hypnosis was to illustrate that these characters are mindlessly following an impossible dream; one they can surely never achieve and one solely based on nothing beyond economics. Whatever the reason it is a wilfully bizarre idea and the results are, to say the least, peculiar. The film has a somewhat deliberate pace and it mixes in Herzog's distinctive mixture of documentary realism with stylised weirdness. Like some of his other oddball efforts such as Fata Morgana (1971), this one falls pretty clearly in avant-garde territory on account of the very strange acting performances. It is essentially a story about a community gone mad, with a shepherd prophet in the periphery predicting many things to come. As is the way though, like many other Herzog's there are moments of visual splendour like fantastic views of the mountains which are like scenes from 19th century romantic paintings come to life, while there are also some customary smaller scale moments of fascination such as the scene showing a glassblower make a small ornamental horse in a seemingly effortless fashion.Ultimately, this is another of those films which is clearly only going to appeal to a few people. Its sheers oddness will alienate a few and it is true that it does take a bit of effort to watch at times. But it is another that highlights the highly original mind of Herzog and the way he has furrowed his own distinct path, this is probably one of his most unusual.

Being a huge Herzog fan, normally loving all his films for the absurdity, I found this particular film being my least favorite. First of all, the plot is about the sacred ruby glass, in which the only person with the ability to make this infamous ruby glass dies without revealing the secret. You discover the plot within the first ten minutes, and it grows interest in you, but as the movie goes on, you drastically lose interest. As much potential as the plot had, it didn't really expand into all it was worth.To me, the plot didn't play an important role in the film. I was much more fascinated by the cast of the film, being hypnotized by Herzog (I'm still curious as to how Herzog hypnotized them.) It almost became hilarious during points of the movie. I found my mind sometimes wandering off the subtitles to focus on the minor characters in the background.Unlike other Herzog films, I didn't get much out of this one. Although it did have Herzog's favorite Man vs. Nature theme, I just couldn't take it for what it was. Of course, it did have some beautiful shots that could have been perfect if it wasn't for the horrible quality of the 16mm camera used. Not that I'm blaming Herzog for the lack of funds, just making a point.The whole atmosphere of the film was very "lynchian." The dialog, mostly. It was very obvious that David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Eraserhead) got a lot of inspiration from "Heart of Glass." In conclusion, I would ONLY recommend this movie to fans of Herzog (especially his older films: "Aquirre, the Wrath of God", "Even Dwarfs Started Small", etc) for the reason that they will understand it and get more out of it. However, to people who are unfamiliar with Herzog's older films, I would stay away from this one.

Each of Herzog's films is an experiment in one way or another. Heart of Glass is one of the most overtly experimental of the lot. Like almost all of Herzog's films, Heart of Glass makes the most of spectacular landscapes and visual context - every scene is, in its own way, a beautiful still-life. However, in Heart of Glass, the effect of the visual context is compounded by the fact that almost every member of the cast - throughout the entire film - is in a state of hypnosis. Predictably, the acting is, to say the least, avant-garde. Nevertheless, characterization is strong, and more importantly, this bizarre, somewhat jarring method of execution creates the film's time and place just as much as the gorgeous landscape shots.Heart of Glass takes place in 19th century Bavaria. The Director's comments (always worth hearing after viewing a Herzog film) indicate that Herzog grew up in a place very much like this. This doesn't stop Herzog from turning his keen analysis of the human condition and modal personalities to attack the central problems of life in this time and place. The story involves a small town in crisis. The one person who holds the secret that is the key to the town's prosperity has taken that secret to his grave, and the master of the glass factory in which he worked is losing his mind looking for a solution. Meanwhile, one of the film's more sympathetic character's, a deeply insightful prophet/lunatic shepherd (with no sheep), Hias, predicts an even greater crisis.Herzog's most consistent theme - his view of human nature - is powerfully illustrated in Heart of Glass. As the great director has often done, Herzog universalizes his view by giving us an essentially alien, dream-like setting and atmosphere. The effect of the cast's hypnotic state is even more jarring than the sheer intensity of Klaus Kinski's performances in many of Herzog's films from this period, and Heart of Glass is as avant-garde as some of his later efforts (such as The Great Blue Yonder). In other words, the average cinema-goer will have a difficult time with this one.Recommended for Herzog, avant-garde and art-film fans. Not recommended for anybody else.

Hypnotized actors, in this story of how something as fragile as glass can bring on the apocalypse for a small German community. There's a character who predicts the future, and narrates in some of Herzog's most poetic dialog yet. The scenes at the end overlooking the cliffs above the Atlantic and their dream of "worlds to come", keep this from being your usual end of all things story. For Herzog there aren't ends, just junctures where one thing dies and another begins. Cycles in history (reflected in the mysterious prophets discussion of greater apocalypses to come in the future world wars 1 and 2).The man who can see the future (and who is of course blamed for all the towns ills), at one point wishes he was out of his cell, and in the next scene he's walking in the woods talking to himself, giving the film a strange tinge of magic realism(though realism and this film don't exactly mix). Strange, difficult, but unforgettable, and a must for Herzog fans. (also it's where the Blondie song comes from)