Review of Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) by John B — 31 Mar 2010

Tough-going pseudo-historical drama. Long before Werner Herzog documented actual men ("Grizzly Man") getting disemboweled by actual nature, he was filming (German) men he made up being picked off one-by-one by nature and the indigenous peoples of South America who inhabited it.

"Aguirre" is, as they say, a tough sit and one imagines a much tougher production as the cast with piles of non-river-worthy gear, including a horse, seems to actually have been set adrift on rickety boats on a drifting South American river.

The always creepy (if he played Ward Clever you would constantly be waiting for him to chainsaw The Beaver) Klaus Kinski plays the cunning, megalomaniacal but ultimately a little too far down the psychopathic spectrum to really pull off conquering all of the South American continent title character.

Some of the cinematography is gorgeous, particularly behind the opening credits, but the dialog, what there is of it, definitely portrays the extensive use of improvisation employed by Herzog. Basically the cast sits on the boat and waits to die at the arrow points of the "Indians" as the German-speaking cast refers to them or to starve to death or to be cut down by Aguirre himself when the unheard but presumably screaming voices in his head tell him to do so.

The movie is probably about man's primordial battle with nature or about the horrors of Western conquest or some other noble subtext but getting through the suffering, long stretches of not much happening and a generally uninteresting story make the trip, like the mythical quest for El Dorado depicted in the film, something of a fool's errand.

I would say watch "Grizzly Man" instead but not getting to hear the final attack after listening to everything else Timothy Treadwell had to say for 2 hours was a bit of a tease.