A bear's man's tale

When 'A Cock & Bull Story' finished, the night was yet young and we were already at Chapter, so it made sense to make the most of it and stay on for another film. We had a choice of documentaries: 'Channels Of Rage', about a pair of Israeli rappers, one a Zionist and the other an Arab; and Werner Herzog's 'Grizzly Man', about Timothy Treadwell, who lived with grizzly bears in the wilderness of Alaska for fourteen summers until he and his girlfriend were killed by them in 2003. Both sounded potentially interesting, but we plumped for the latter.

'Grizzly Man' incorporates interviews with Treadwell's friends, acquaintances and - towards the end - his parents, but consists mainly of footage edited by Herzog from over 100 hours of film that Treadwell himself shot during his last five "expeditions" (it's still overly long, but that's a fairly minor quibble). This footage includes some impressive images of Treadwell's ursine companions in their natural habitat, but wildlife documentary this is not. The film is entitled 'Grizzly Man' with good reason - it is Treadwell himself and not the bears that is at its centre.

With his flowing golden locks, baseball cap and shades, Treadwell looks like a surfer washed up on unfamiliar shores, and his bouncy, bright enthusiasm when on camera with the bears behind him is reminiscent not of David Attenborough but a hyperactive children's TV presenter. As Herzog suggests at one point, Treadwell appears to have cast himself as the "kind warrior", the fearless all-action hero of his own movie, and indeed it is as a fellow filmmaker as much as anything else that Herzog is interested in him.

Throughout the film Treadwell has three mantra-like lines.

Firstly, he constantly claims that by living with the bears he is protecting them from outside threats to them and their habitat, and by documenting it he is able to educate children. But, aside from some brief clips very early on, we never really see him in action in the classroom (a failing of the film, perhaps). More puzzling is that first claim - how is he protecting them, one wants to ask him, and from what? Indeed, when he encounters poachers who throw rocks at one of the bears, he is appalled but remains hidden, refusing to reveal himself and stop the torture. As an Alaskan native points out, Treadwell was himself an intruder, and in ignoring the safe distance between humans and grizzlies he was equally guilty of disrespecting them. And, of course, it was that dangerous disrespect that ultimately got him killed.

Secondly, he spends much of his screen-time declaring his love for the creatures that surround him (or with which he has surrounded himself): the bears (which are all given names), foxes, even - pathetically, amusingly but nevertheless touchingly - a bee. Herzog talks of Treadwell's desire to live in harmony with the natural world, but of course it also betrays a desire to be loved - a desire that seems to have gone unfulfilled in the human world, in which he was troubled by (amongst other things) alcoholism and relationships with women.

Thirdly, he repeatedly draws attention to the perilous situations in which he places himself, claiming that his survival is a matter of special courage and ability, as well as a rapport with the animals. Anyone else, he argues more than once, would be ripped to pieces. And this is where I think Herzog's otherwise excellent commentary could have been sharper. For, while harmonious living was important to Treadwell, he also evidently wanted to be at the centre and in control, to feel master of all he surveyed - wildlife, landscape, himself. Good old-fashioned hubris, in other words. It was like some kind of crazily dangerous child's game - one precipitated by a deep-seated psychological need, but childish all the same.

And yet for all his self-obsession and idiocy, Treadwell remains a sympathetic character it's hard not to warm to, and when Herzog listens to the audio tape of the fatal attack and later when Treadwell's ashes are scattered in the place he called home there was a definite lump in the throat.