Review of Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) by Ryan H — 13 Jun 2012

Perhaps I'm just never going to get a giant erection over a film by Werner Herzog. I feel like everyone has one great director that they just for some reason don't love as much as everyone else.

I guess mine is Herzog. However, I can safely say that I thought Aguirre: The Wrath of God was the film by Herzog I like the most. I agree with people when they say it's haunting. I never did feel so pulled in that the haunting feeling took over the film.

I guess that's what I always get from Herzog's films. I feel like he tells great stories but I tend to feel distanced and hardly ever involved. The second half of this film is where I became the most involved that I've ever been in his films.

The first half had some silly shots that weren't as interesting as he thought. I understood that the natural elements were taking over them. I didn't really think that cut to a static shot of rushing water was very smooth nor effective.

I loved the opening slow moving shot that showed the crew walking through the clouds in the mountains. The next shots where we were with them in the mountain felt pretty amateur. It took me out of the movie.

I was more focused on seeing these people trying to not look into the camera and seem as natural as possible. I could tell I was watching a movie. Perhaps this was what he wanted, and if that's the case then I just simply didn't understand.

I could nitpick and go through so many things that I didn't care much for in the first half, but it also establishes the characters really well and sets an amazing tone for the better part of the film.

It all leads up to seeing the madness of Aguirre and the rest of the crew. What I thought was most well done is how people die. When they are shot there's not a jolt in the music and the person doesn't freak out.

They die in a way that they accept everything is over. The best part of the film's towards the end when they are going down the river on the raft and the crew's getting killed by spears. They are completely mad at this point and don't believe that anything's actually happening to them.

Aguirre in his thirst for power yells at them telling them they are dying. When they are stuck with a spear they just stay on the ground where they're at and eventually die. The story here shows these people that are lead to their doom.

They love gold and God so much that they believed the Inca's when they told the story about El Dorado so they go on the search for the great city. We know straight from the beginning they are doomed, so we are just watching them become consumed by nature.

At the same time they become less and less civilized. They no longer want to give the city over to Spain. This will be their's and they will assign their own emperor and everything. At times the film's hypnotic and the music is always top notch.

It begins to take you under after a while and before you know it you're lost in the film. It kinda betrays itself when one of the guys is killed and he makes a joke about the bigger spears becoming fashionable.

There are moments like those that I don't understand their purpose. But overall, I thought Aguirre: The Wrath of God was great, but not as focused or engaging as it could have been.