‘Ghost Elephants’ Viennale Review: In Search of Lost Giants with Werner Herzog

It’s comforting, even in a film world that tends to prize novelty above all else, to come across something familiar — something that feels like coming home. Werner Herzog’s documentaries always bring that sense of recognition: a journey through peculiar landscapes, strange lives, and philosophical wonder, all accompanied by that unmistakable Bavarian voice. His new film, Ghost Elephants — whose rights were acquired by National Geographic at the Venice Film Festival and will premiere on the platform in 2026 — fits squarely in the director’s long tradition of probing nature’s mysteries. This time, he heads deep into Africa alongside an impassioned biologist searching for the elusive “ghost elephants.”

Dr. Steve Boyes, a South African field biologist, seems almost like a caricature of the classic nature explorer: scruffy beard, khaki shorts, battered cap, and boundless enthusiasm. We first meet him wandering through the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History — one of Herzog’s partners in the project — where he visits the remains of what is considered the largest elephant ever recorded: an 11-ton giant captured and killed in 1955 by Dr. Fénkövi, after whom it was named. In the museum, it’s affectionately called “Henry.” Boyes, visibly moved, explains that he has long studied Henry through photographs but has never before seen the taxidermied specimen. His mission, he says, is to find the creature’s living descendants, who may still roam the wetlands of Angola and Namibia.

Herzog follows Boyes, his local guides, and tribal trackers into those vast and humid territories, documenting their quest to find these towering animals — far larger than any known elephants and notoriously difficult to locate. Ghost Elephants unfolds as both a physical adventure and a meditation, blending scientific inquiry with mystical reflection — not only from Herzog’s ever-philosophical narration but also from Boyes and the communities they meet, who speak of an ancient bond between humans and elephants.

Unlike explorers of the past, today’s adventurers no longer hunt or disturb wildlife. The team’s goal is purely scientific: to collect a few DNA samples — in ways Herzog reveals with sly humor — to bring back to the museum and compare with Henry’s. If the genes match, they might confirm a lineage both biologically rare and spiritually potent. The film moves fluidly between these field expeditions and the sophisticated labs of the United States, tracing how ancient life and modern science can intersect.

As in Aguirre, the Wrath of God or Fitzcarraldo, Herzog’s true subject isn’t the discovery itself but the pursuit — the obsession that drives a man to chase the unattainable. Boyes is his modern-day Ahab, pursuing a living Moby Dick that may be more metaphor than mammal. Yet, even beyond the personal portrait, the breathtaking cinematography of Africa opens up something larger: a parallel world, with its own time, rhythms, and logic.

Through the tribe’s dances, rituals, and storytelling — performed with reverence and occasional playfulness — Herzog watches as people imitate elephants, reenact their legends, and hold ceremonies in their honor. Myth and anthropology intertwine until, amid the overwhelming vastness of the African landscape — said to be the cradle of humankind — we hear once again that familiar, gravelly voice telling us, in his singular way, another haunting and beautiful tale.