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National Geographic
Herod's Last Tomb
Herod’s Lost Tomb
tackles a mildly interesting topic. Obviously, it deals with King Herod
of New Testament fame. Herod was an eccentric historical figure who
wielded immense power in all sorts of strange and impressive ways. While
many of his architectural triumphs are well understood and documented,
the location of his tomb has never been determined. This documentary
deals with its discovery.
Documentaries are about real things. They’re set in the real world. The
reality of the events that they portray, and the reality with which
those events are portrayed, are two of the best things about
documentaries. Unfortunately, latter day National Geographic
documentaries often miss this point. As a result, we get a documentary
that mixes interesting archaeological footage with painfully artificial
re-enactment footage and a male voiceover who almost certainly makes his
real money by doing trailers for action films.
This is not a documentary that demands a lot from its audience. Most of
the interviews are very short, and the narration reduces all the
information to sound-bites and spoon-feeds them to you in gloriously
overcooked tones. The re-enactments are as you’d expect: superfluous,
cringe-worthy, and boring.
Luckily, the story of Herod is innately remarkable. The documentary
provides various visual representations of his architectural triumphs
which are borderline fascinating. The cinematography, in particular the
shots of the Wailing Wall, is beautiful. There are a couple of folklore-ish
stories about his life which smack of sensationalism, but only a little.
The interviews are acceptable, even if they do stay very much on the
surface. All these good features make it doubly sad that the offensive
aspects of the documentary encourage the viewer to tune right out.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the feature at the centre of the documentary
(his tomb) is actually among the least interesting things detailed in
it. We’re talking about a man who built – or caused to be built – a
three-tiered suspended palace, water cisterns that could hold 40000
cubic litres, complex underwater concrete structures that were centuries
ahead of their time, and many other wonders. With this context, it’s
difficult to be all that amazed by the pieces of smashed pottery that
allegedly came from his tomb. No matter how much choral music you pour
on top of it, no matter how many times you use the word “staggering”,
the architecture utterly overshadows the quest around which the film
centres.
The special features include another documentary - Inside Jerusalem’s
Holiest Places. How is it? You tell me. I couldn’t stomach any more
of the narrator, and turned it off as soon as his voice reappeared. I
felt like I’d done my time.
Herod’s Lost Tomb
is a documentary that will probably satisfy anyone who has never seen
anything by David Attenborough. The content is interesting enough, some
of the cinematography is great, and (as long as you’re struck blind
during the re-enactments) it’s quite a visual treat. But as someone who
has seen enough BBC documentaries to know how these things can be done
properly, I have to take my red pen and write “See me after class. D+.” |
