La Soufrière

As 75,000 people were being evacuated from the island of Guadeloupe in 1976, Herzog characteristically flew in to film the predicted eruption of 'La Soufrière' volcano and find the one peasant reported to have remained behind. Manic adventure had its reward. The holocaust didn't occur, the one peasant turned out to be a handful of calmly resigned natives; and the film metamorphosed into an essay on a deserted civilisation, like a surreal fourth chapter to Fata Morgana, or a sci-fi documentary on a city of starving dogs and blinking traffic lights.