Aguirre, the Wrath of God

"Aguirre" is based on a true story of a band of Spanish conquistadors searching for El Dorado. The actual expedition was ill-fated, and so, the film inevitably ends in a gloomy fashion. But what a fascinating film it is! The film follows Aguirre, one of the conquistadors, who eventually assumes control of the expedition and who slowly descends into madness as the expedition runs into disaster after disaster. Along the way, we are presented with a multitude of astounding, almost hallucinatory, images. For instance, the film opens with an incredible shot of a long line of soldiers and their caravan/bearers as they weave through the thick forests; the camera pulls back in a single take and we suddenly realize that the trail must contain perhaps hundreds of people along this dangerous footing. The effect is quite similar to that at the beginning of Charlie Chaplin's "Gold Rush" where we see a never-ending line of hundreds of Klondike prospectors along a snowy path. It's quite astounding, especially when you consider this was all shot on location; the difficulties and dangers portrayed on film were actually encountered by the actors and filmmakers. No special effects, here.

I would highly recommend this film to anyone interested in German cinema and one of the greatest of the recent German directors. Five stars!


Unforgettable images   May 13, 2001
Wing J. Flanagan (Orlando, Florida United States)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

The story is familiar to anyone who has seen Treasure of the Sierra Madre, or the countless stories inspired by Frank Norris' McTeague: a group of adventurers goes looking for treasure in a hostile wilderness. One by one, they succumb to power-mad fantasies and kill each other, until there is only one left. He is mad by the end - stark, raving mad. Maybe he has the gold, maybe he doesn't. But he's far from home in every sense. Even if he could get back to civilization, he has snapped, broken from the reality of his former life. He is shattered. Aguirre, The Wrath of God presents a variation of this story, but one rooted in history.

The Fred C. Dobbs character is the titular Aguirre, played to eerie perfection by Klaus Kinski. He is part of a 16th-century Spanish expedition to the Amazon River basin looking for El Dorado, the fabled city of gold. The first time I saw this film, I could guess where the story was inexorably leading. What I was not prepared for was the extraordinary power of its images, performances, and ideas.

Stanley Kubrick once said that if you do your job well as a director, then it almost doesn't matter how you shoot a scene. Where you plant the camera, in other words, becomes less important than what is going on in front of it. Werner Herzog proves that point with every dream he commits to celluloid.

One would think, for example, that a hand-held camera would seem jarring, out of place in the 16th-century. Historical dramas tend toward tripods, dolly and track, diffusion filters, and lush beauty lighting. But most of Aguirre, The Wrath of God is shot like a documentary - without affectation; searching for the shot and stumbling upon it. The camera - and therefore the viewer - becomes a participant in the story. The result is a series of arresting, yet organic images: a long line of European aristocrats and their native-born slaves traveling a narrow, misty trail in the side of a steep mountain; a raft full of doomed conquistadors helplessly drawn into an eddy near some rapids on the Amazon; a woman in a sumptuous gown drifting into the jungle in stately silence, never to be seen again; Aguirre alone on a raft full of corpses, expounding on his plans for conquest to an audience of a hundred chattering monkeys. These images, and more, burn themselves into the mind. That Werner Herzog achieves them with such apparent artlessness is astounding.

Aguirre, The Wrath of God is ultimately a brutally simple film. Some of its least-adorned scenes reach more deeply than the most technically dazzling set pieces by the likes of Hitchcock, Welles, or DePalma. Young film-makers would do well to take heed.


Entertaining but eerie.   May 24, 2000
9 out of 12 found this review helpful

This film has always been a sentimental favorite of mine, although it is definitely not a mainstream movie with mass appeal. It chronicles the eerie, haunting, and morbid journey of a group of fifteenth century Spanish conquistadores who break off from Pizzaro's group and head into the deepest parts of the Amazon jungle in search of gold. They are swallowed up, one by one, by unseen natural forces in the jungle, and also by the paranoia and insanity of their leader Aguirre (Kinski). It is well deserving of its reputation as a cult classic, and it is one of Kinski's signature pieces. Showcasing his ability to create a bizzare, twisted and disturbing persona. Since the conquistadores are eventually lead to destruction by Aguirres lust for power and riches it is almost a metaphore of the entire history of the Spanish conquests of South America. The film is actually shot in several languages (including English), then DUBBED into GERMAN, and then SUBTITLED back into English again; which gives the whole thing a rather strange appearance. Kinski's daughter Nastashia is also in the film, playing Aguirre's daughter. Her character is not well developed, and she is only there to show that there IS actually something in the world that Aguirre cares about besides gold. Nevertheless, it is a novelty to see her in her movie debut, before she became famous in her own right. I recommend the movie to those who like offbeat 'artistic' films, and cult classics, but not to those who are looking for light entertainment or an adventure movie.


Correction to earlier criticism   December 4, 2003
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

Someone stated earlier that you should avoid this dvd as it is full frame and not widescreen. "Aguirre" was shot by Herzog in 33:1 aspect ratio, and there is no widescreen version of the film.