Genre: Adventure/Biography/Drama/History Director: Werner Herzog
Producers: Werner Herzog, Hans Prescher
Writer: Werner Herzog
Cast: Klaus Kinski, Helena Rojo, Ruy Guerra, Del Negro
Music: Popol Vuh
Cinematography: Thomas Mauch
Editing: Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
Distribution: Werner Herzog Filmproduktion
Release Date: December 29, 1972
Running Time: 100 min
Where to begin with this one? Where to begin? Aguirre, the Wrath of God was above all the love-child of two madmen named Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski. The director and star went out into the Peruvian Jungle with a budget of about $370,000 and a stolen camera and returned with a classic. There are legends surrounding the making of the film, the numerous fights between Herzog and Kinski which culminated in Herzog *supposedly* pulling a gun on his star, the difficulty of the on-location shooting, the list goes on. What exactly is it about Aguirre, the Wrath of God though that makes the film classic? Let’s take a look.
The setting is Peru of the sixteenth century, and Pizarro’s men have just conquered the Incan Empire, now they set their sights of finding the mystical city of gold known as El Dorado. A party led by the insane Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) is sent upriver in search of the gold, but it’s not long before the nightmare begins as the forces of nature and an unseen enemy begins to pick off the party one by one and Aguirre begins to descend further into madness.
Herzog delivers the tale of Aguirre and his failed expedition in a dream-like, guerrilla style. There plot doesn’t move in the traditional sense of the word, instead what we get is a series of events that play out like a nightmare. The centerpiece here is Aguirre’s “descent” into madness. His insanity is like a virus that slowly infests the film until it builds up to an unforgettable conclusion where we see Aguirre “naked” to the world. Of course this wouldn’t be possible without a strong central performance from Kinski who does a fantastic job of building up the suspense. Most of the film we see Kinski walking and glaring, when he speaks it’s always in this strange, poetic way, and when he explodes well, he’s really exploding. It’s all very powerful stuff.
Herzog’s direction is sublime, his guerrilla approach to filmmaking coupled with the on-location shooting really lend to the enhancement of the atmosphere. The film is drenched by the lush, foreboding jungle. The film is breathtaking in its beauty, you could turn off the sound and just sit back and look at the cinematography and it would be no less amazing. The scenes only increase in grandeur and scope as the film carries on, the attack on the native village is sublime in its mixture of horror and beauty, and the final shot is devastating but amazing, a visual treat on every level.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a landmark of cinema, it’s a film which has influenced many others, even Apocalypse Now, and may even have been bested, but it’s still a masterpiece and a film to keep returning to.
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