Arena: Nomad
BBC2
Werner Herzog’s marvellous homage to the writer, Bruce Chatwin, Nomad (21 September), was a pilgrimage both touching and piercing to the shrines of the Herzog-Chatwin friendship. The two first met in Australia where Chatwin was researching his celebrated book, The Songlines, and Herzog was making a film, Where the Green Ants Dream.
Theirs were kindred spirits – they liked enigmas and mysteries (but not solving them), storytelling, tribal cultures and primal myths. “The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot,” reflected Herzog. Chatwin was haunted all his life by the idea that humans were meant to be nomadic, that settlement was counter to deepest instincts. On his deathbed, he bequeathed Herzog his travel-battered leather knapsack.
