A powerful evocation of apocalypse, Werner Herzog's Lektionen in Finsternis (Lessons of Darkness) almost plays like a cautionary time capsule from the wayward, destructive present. Capturing the burning of the Kuwaiti oil fields with a dispassionate eye, Herzog imbues the carnage and destruction with a strange beauty. Flames that seem to go upward and onward for miles acquire mythic grandeur. These images, combined with the graceful glide of Herzog's camera and a soundtrack loaded with Mahler, Wagner, and other masters, give the movie an anomalous feel; it's a disturbingly gorgeous requiem of destruction. The feeling of detachment is amplified by Herzog's refusal to ground the images in any political or historical context. Interviews with two Kuwaiti women about Iraqi atrocities notwithstanding, the movie is conspicuously devoid of references to Iraq, the war, and other seemingly pertinent details. Clearly preferring a metaphorical approach to the catastrophe, the movie says something of man's indefatigable capacity for destruction. It's an abstract, elemental vision that's as aesthetically breathtaking as it is morally questionable. For one, the apolitical approach brings up charges of apathy -- how could any filmmaker be witness to such destruction without seeking the reasons behind it? The film's beauty is problematic as well; is it moral to be awestruck by images that were the product of brutality and barbarism? Answers to such questions will vary depending on taste and temperament, which is only fitting considering the film's mercurial maker. As likely to astound as it is to disturb, Lektionen in Finsternis is an unclassifiable movie that takes its rightful place in Herzog's oeuvre of obsessive, unhinged cinema.