I kind of get what Herzog was going for here. Kind of. But was it really necessary to show us 20 or 30 minutes of raw auctioneering footage? I don't think so.

Easily Herzog's dullest film. Nice of him to give us another document of an odd, marginal culture, but even as a short this has an unfortunate tendency to wear out its welcome

Even if the novelty of the auction chants hadn't worn off rather quickly, we're still not given too much to work with here. These sort of documentaries work best when the subjects' unique talent lends some interesting insights or worldview, but the auctioneers here have virtually nothing interesting to say.

An appropriately Herzogian topic, but the last twenty minutes start to drag on.

Herzog just lets his subjects be themselves - which makes for riveting cinema, if characters in their "native habitat" are your focus.

Fun...yet pointless.

Auctioneers should have been a hell of a lot more engaging, but waaaaaaaay too much time (the bulk of the film) is spent on the competition. It's surreal and hypnotic for about 10 minutes, then gradually tapers off to dullsville. By the end of it, I was skipping ahead.

Very primitive.

The language of auctioneers creates such an unusual rhythm for Herzog. Had this been even slightly longer, I'd have grown tired, but I felt it was successful.

Pretty alright. An interesting subject for sure for I have a vague memory of these auctions as well but in the end the movie is really boring, something I wouldn't expect from Herzog.

:canada: