Many things of beauty exist that man simply was not meant to fuck with: thunderstorms, fire, waterfalls, Jennifer Lopez, grizzly bears. The latter proved the last of Timothy Treadwell. As Werner Herzog’s wildly acclaimed documentary Grizzly Man proves, the self-appointed bear protector/failed actor knew this — absolutely knew he could be bitten, decapitated, eaten, shish-kabobbed, what have you — and yet put himself in harm’s way, on purpose, for 13 years, until one of the bears finally got tired of him being around.
Sporting a haircut that screams “Jeff Daniels in Dumb & Dumber,” Treadwell shot his own field movies, which show the drama queen hanging out with the bears in a proximity that humans should do only when friggin’ zoo bars exist between the two. He talks to the bears like a would-be Dr. Dolittle, granting them them cutesie names: Grinch, Aunt Melissa, Mr. Chocolate, Freckles. (Ditto for foxes, i.e. Banjo.) I can guess how Sgt. Brown got his moniker; he’s the bear that defecates a lot while fighting with one Mickey Bear.
Speaking of poop, Treadwell is shown touching a fresh, steaming pile because he thinks it’s beautiful it came from the butt of his beloved Wendy. If you think that’s weird, wait until he sheds tears over a dead bee. Yes, there’s something that wasn’t right with the man; apparently, he drank too many brain cells away to think he had forged some relationship with them that they understood his words. He’s like The Crocodile Hunter without the cable contract.
That makes Herzog’s doc fascinating and infuriating. If you’re looking to get off on grizzly footage of Treadwell’s death by furry creature, you’ll be disappointed; seek solace in your Faces of Death collection, perv. (You will, however, find an extended story about exploding soup, if you’re into that sort of thing.) Still, the movie is unsettling, and not just because of an unblinking mortician. Moral of the story? Please do not feed the bears. —Rod Lott