part grizzly man, part girly man, this documentary focuses on the best of hundreds of hours of real life footage, on the life of Timothy Treadwell, a man with a bear fetish so much so that he wanted to be one. With minimal contact and non-invasive force, but with the energy of Richard Simmons on helium, Treadwell acts like a ‘kind warrior’ in an effort to educate the public about a grizzly’s natural world. His bible of bear beliefs tell us he intends to be their master, their friend yet never plans to die by ‘their claws and paws.’ Directed and narrated by Werner Horzog, we slowly unravel the psychological makeup of Treadwell’s history (long before his thirteen summers in the Alaskan peninsula, of Kodiak mountain). Unlike Dian Fossey who pioneered and died at the hands of gorillas in hopes of saving them from poachers, we never know what it is Treadwell stands for, since he preaches from a wildlife sanctuary where the bears are protected anyway. Treadwell had drug, alcohol and acting issues, after never landing a role as Woody on “Cheers”, so that it seems like his obsession with bears is to escape his own inner grizzly world. He was a showman for his own camera, acting out a role, and he created a world with Barney the Dinosaur attitude, constantly reminding the shy fox and the big bears “I love you, and you love me” to the point that we’re sure he was a madman. He wanted to ‘die for a bear’ but not at the hands of one. We can only hope his heavenly fate is filled with a comeback, in his next life, as a bear.
