Fata Morgana

Fata Morgana is a documentary from Werner Herzog that weaves mirages and other images from the Sahara with a soundtrack made up of religious music and Leonard Cohen tracks and extracts from Mayan creation myths. It is a mesmerising and beautiful meditation on the desert and the human influences on it - images include shots of beautiful villages; rusting machinery abandoned in the sand and groups of dead animals lying rotting.

The film was originally intended to be presented with a science fiction narrative, an idea that was abandoned once filming began, but was realized in his later film The Wild Blue Yonder.

Available as part of a DVD boxed set of films by Werner Herzog.