filicide and the orphanage of industrialized society

“Will he clean the Augean stables?
Will he kill the Lernaean Hydra?
Will he tame the Mares of Diomedes?
Will he defeat the Amazons?
Will he conquer the giants?
Will he resist the Stymphalian birds?” (“Herakles” commentary on youtube.com)

The questions, posed like some Don King fight promotion, are answered with scenes of an indefatigable enemy. herzog’s film, “herakles,” stages a match between the ancient hero Herakles and the modern implements of technological power.

herakles, the ancient hero, was a paragon of strength and prowess (wiki “Herakles”). he represents the ideal man. herakles, the film’s muscle man, is also an idealization. while exercising, he looks alternately at a pin-up of his bodily dream adorning the wall and his mirror image. the man is not whole in the frame of the camera, only in his gaze-space of imagination. likewise, one is a partial object tricked to believe the purported holism of imago–reflected in the mirror and emblazoned in a photograph.

herakles was of the strongest men. what is strength? is it no longer muscle tone and movement?

the film unfolds in a series of juxtapositions that interrupt an otherwise repetitious continuity. we find the ancient myth of herakles’ 12 labors–which he is assigned as punishment for killing his sons–transformed into modern terrors. against abdomen/torso are juxtaposed the empty boxes towering over a landfill. how can one clean such a stable? we now tend to measure stability in accumulation, with garbage.

the hydra is a line of cars, with mile markers. the repetitions of weightlifting parallel the repetitious ride around the ring of motorcars. as wounded men are pulled from a moto-wreckage (as from man-eating steads), how is strength conceived in wake of man’s mechanical collision and incineration? in a modern era of mechanized brutality and brute force, is herakles’ strength reduced to vanity? is heroism irrelevant in our industrialized age?

we see the marching uniformed women of the “amazon” and wonder about the transfiguration of the mammary into national memory. while humans are working excavation of a bombed-out building, we take refuge in all manners of broken buildings–our myths of power in the weight/wait-room. this relates to a modernization of atrocity, of strength, of an epic battle to be waged against a monstrous worldwide industrialization.

the juxtaposition also implies a collusion, if not responsibility, with the tech-calamity, as though herakles insinuates these scenes of destruction cognitively. is he envisioning his enemy? is his enemy himself–he who can envision?

who will triumph in a match between the machinations of modern technology and a more ancient regime of physicality? like most professional (i.e. “staged”) sporting events, the answer is a foregone conclusion.