Ghost Elephants is a very Herzog quest for the sublime

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Hi guys, I'm Sarah Krasnstein. I'm the Saturday Papers television critic and this week I review the newest documentary from Verer Herzog which is called Ghost Elephants. So it introduces us to a conservation biologist named Dr. Steven Boy, who has devoted his career to a search for an elusive and possibly illusory species of elephant that he believes lives in the almost inaccessibly remote Angolan Highlands.

[00:00:31]Herzog follows Boy on his latest arduous mission to try to find evidence of this herd, which Boy himself admits may or may not exist.

[00:00:44]The scientist's mythic striving to convert this belief into certainty is what makes the story uniquely Herziggovian. What emerges in this latest documentary is, I think, the finest and most moving expression of this obsession that Herzog keeps returning to over the course of this very long six decade career, which is this line between dreams and delusion and the ways in which our obsessions can elevate us or ultimately destroy us.

[00:01:22]It's story-wise and visually sublime, and I really urge you to check it out.

[00:01:28]Thanks,