“There is no other film quite like The Flying Dutchman. Part opera, part experimental sound collage, and part avant-garde cinema, it is a surrealistic take on Wagner’s opera that pushed the boundaries of film making at the time.”
—Monthly Film Series, Portland German Film Festival

"One of the very finest cinematic adaptations of an opera ever produced. A riveting vision of Wagner's dark tale, as visually impressive as it is psychologically acute."
— Hilan Warshaw, director of Wagner's Jews

"Joachim Herz promoted a revolutionary reading of the opera in 1960s—befitting the climate of postwar East Germany—that saw the narrative in terms of an individual's quest to break free from the shackles of bourgeois society."
— The Financial Times, 2012

“An homage to F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu.”
— Joy H. Calico, “Wagner in East Germany” in Wagner & Cinema

“Herz set new standards for the international interpretation of Wagner since the 1960s.”
— Kristel Pappel, Wagner 2013. Künstlerpositionen

“Productions of the opera since Joachim Herz’s 1964 film have been inclined to focus just as much on the escapist fantasies of the redeeming woman, Senta.”
— London Evening Standard

“Herz uses exceptional optical effects!”
— Günter Agde, film historian