'Lo and Behold' - Movie Review

I should have known better than to watch a movie about a technology I was intimately familiar with by an opinionated madman. "Lo and Behold" is a movie about "the internet" by Werner Herzog. I continue to occasionally watch his movies because, while I consider him completely insane, he has remained rather fascinating. Here, he digs into the craziness just as much as he digs into the facts.

My greatest frustration was with his discussion around the United States National Radio Quiet Zone, where he went to find out what life was like without the internet. Which is a significant misinterpretation to start with - one he leaves dangling and unexplained - that no radio signals equals no internet. He then proceeds to interview several people with Electromagnetic hypersensitivity - a disease that has so far failed to show any actual scientific proof of its own existence. In most "chapters" of the movie Herzog interviews scientists and entrepreneurs, subject experts: in this segment, he goes straight to the sufferers. More emotional clout I suppose. Although he does the same thing in the chapter called "the dark side," which is about the family of a young girl who was beheaded in a car accident, and within hours many photos of her mangled body were posted on the internet. The mother firmly declares that the internet is evil incarnate. (It's a technology: it's not good or evil, it can be used for either.)

I was more interested in the chapter on sun flares: in this case, he's actually chasing a very real and rather nasty possibility. A big enough sun flare could potentially destroy a huge percentage of the world's computers: the electro-magnetic radiation generated doesn't significantly effect humans, but is genuinely dangerous to (running) computers. It sounds like catastrophism, but, while improbable, it's not impossible.

Some of the interviews are very interesting, but a significant portion of the movie is incredibly misleading. If you watch it, watch it for the entertainment value not the factual value.