Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Rodrigo Amaro At first, "Where The Green Ants Dream" sounds like something really interesting and very intriguing. While in there, the ultimate worthy value is of its entertainment purpose, since the artistic merits of it are quite simplistic. It is what it can be and no more than that. It's a good film, and can only be that. Great doesn't fit such unnecessary project empty of ideas.The movie deals with a strange impasse between a mineral company which wants to explore an aborigine land, and the proclaimers of such land, the native who claim the company will destroy their land and will disturb the sleep and dreams of some green ants who inhabit there, and those ants contain to power to destroy the whole world, if they were to be destroyed. Trying to settle down the issue is a company man (Bruce Spence) who each day goes by seems more inclined in protecting the aborigine and their traditions. Money and other offers are made to them but they refuse all of them...until the day they see an airplane and they want it. A trade seems to be made. Only seems cause the natives don't sign any paper and still refuse the exploration of the land.That kind of subject was covered in plenty of films, and better ones. Like "Lemon Tree" where a simple tree stands on the way between the Israel/Palestine conflicts. And real life has thousands of stories like this happening, about land expropriation in exchange of profit. The more "Where the Green Ants Dream" unfolds the more it becomes unnatural, forced and devoided of any kind of necessity to exist. Why must we see this? Well, what drags most viewers to this is the name of Werner Herzog behind the credits, an important director, indeed, but very little of his greatness is present in this project. The story goes up and down, our interest goes on and off from time to time mainly because of its characters, who should be sympathetic as they are in other movies, instead they're quite annoying, simple-minded, I couldn't care about anyone in here. I couldn't be on the company side and neither on the natives side. The latter was more of a case that I felt they weren't being real, they were inventing that ants story. It baffles me why the story haven't turned into more obscure and dangerous results. No, instead we have the plane being hijacked by a native who keeps singing "My baby does the hanky panky". Herzog wasn't tasteless with this film, he just didn't make this a more vital and relevant piece to the audience. 6/10

MisterWhiplash Where the Green Ants Dream- at the least featuring one of Werner Herzog's best titled films as it's one of those amazing visuals one gets out of the strangest of the director's work- is placed in a somewhat minor cannon of the German maverick's work, and maybe rightfully so. It's about a controversial topic, that of the rights of the Aborigines and the Australian's seeming right via original British Imperial rule, and it features practically all non-professional actors and some shaky transitions between its sturdy plot and non-sequiters and quintessential Herzogian landscapes. If I were recommending Herzog films to a friend this wouldn't be at the top of the crop (unless of course one is fervently into Australian issue movies or love that one song from the 80s "Beds are Burning"). But it's by no means an over-ambitious quagmire like Heart of Glass, and at worst it's occasionally dull or, and I hate to say this for Herzog, too eccentric for its own good.It's not to say some of Herzog's bits of character eccentricities aren't out of place. There's featured here amid the story of an aboriginal tribe peacefully protesting and standing their ground against construction on a sacred land of the title name various strange bits of business. My favorite was that mid-section involving the Aborigines asking for a plane, assumed on the part of the construction group as part of the negotiations, and features in one of the oddest parts of the movie the one black pilot from the Aussie air force who keeps singing "My baby does the hanky-panky" to himself. And there's some cool visuals of stock tornado footage and those barren wastelands and perplexing dunes and pyramid-hills in the desert plains that provide the director some choice locations to film. It's hard not to see for the Herzog fan some allotment of poetry.But there are some problems that I couldn't quite ignore. Despite the acting force of Bruce Spence, who displays far more here as a gifted actor (contrary to what another IMDb reviewer said) and as more than just the kooky flier in the Mad Max movies, the acting is in general fairly weak and at best standard and too off-kilter. It's fairly distracting when Herzog can't quite corral his actors as well as with his technical skills; this also despite some real 'presence' with the two aboriginal chiefs. And certain big scenes, like the courtroom, aren't as effective as might have been intended and come off as dry and too naturalistic and stuffy.And yet, even with these qualms, it's got some real courage and conviction with its message, which is that aside from the typical "respect the native culture" beat is that people need to learn to live together and not have cultures lost and squandered in the face of bigotry and imperialistic attitudes that should have been squashed decades ago. It's a very good, if not great, examination of a meeting of two societies and an identification of "the other" by a filmmaker willing to take it on. 7.5/10

lblarson1 I really liked this movie. I liked the respect that was offered and given by both the native demonstrators and the geologist. This film prompted thought, thought about what is valued when death approaches, whether that is seen as death of an individual or a people. The mining company stands on the foundation of its legal right to proceed with what the contemporary civilization values, and some scoff the values of the natives. But if we listen we hear that is something we all must address when asking of ourselves what is sacred and will we protect and defend that in the face of our own extinction, because clearly the law is not designed to protect the sacred, but to settle a dispute. We are an amalgam of the characters, the native voice that seeks self perpetuation of tribe and story, the company voice that works for progress and acquisition of wealth, the mediator and thinker voice that comes through the geologist, and the law which strives of order in chaos. These tensions of the human condition, are made so vivid in the land and skies of the Australian outback.

artzau I'm invariably surprised when I mention this film to friends that they say they've never seen it. Werner Herzog in Australia? C'mon. How could the great German director of Wozzeck, Nosferatu and other Gothic classics concern himself with a very oblique tale of a development project impeded by Aboriginal Australians who contend that disturbing the green ants dreams by ripping up their habitat will likewise rip the fabric of the universe? The government solution is to give them an airplane which one of the younger members of their tribe eventually manages to take off with a number of the elders on board. Looking over the cast, you likely not recognize names that most of us who don't follow Aussie films know; some of us may know Bruce Spence from the Mad Max films who plays a geologist, but there are many Australian Aborigines. A poignant moment is seen in the court room scene where one Aborigine rises to speak and the judge asks for a translation, only to be told the men is called "the Mute" because there's no one left who understands his tribal language.The overall effect of the film is wonderfully Herzog with a surrealistic portrayal of the clash of old and new, progress versus conservation and fraught with cultural miscommunication. I really recommend this film for your viewing.