Review of Cobra Verde (1987) by Marcus W — 10 Aug 2010

...and so it came to this. This would come to be the last film Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski made together. Kinski had just made Kinski Paganini (1989), and was apparantly still in character from that film, and it marred the production of this one.

It's the weakest of their collaborations, with little of the grandeur and ambition of Fitzcarraldo, it's still well shot though. This has Brazilian rancher Francisco Manoel da Silva (Kinski), who is also the bandit Cobra Verde, he gets a job with sugar baron Don Octavio Coutinho (José Lewgoy), and Silva manages to impregnate all 3 of his daughters.

As punishment, instead of death, Silva is sent to re-opening the slave trade with Africa, which Coutinho knows will be an impossible task. But, Silva somehow succeeds, negotiating a deal with the tyanical King Bossa Ahadee of Dahomey (His Royal Highness Nana Agyefi Kwame II of Nsein), and exchanging slaves for new rifles.

Silva sends slaves over the Atlantic to Brazil, but power gets to Silva's head, and he ends up leading the native women to try and kill King Bossa. Based on Bruce Chatwin's 1980 novel, The Viceroy of Ouidah, it's a very episodic film, sketchy and unsure, but it does have good moments with some scenes that stay in the memory.

It brought down the curtain on one of the best actor/director unions of them all, and maybe the most dangerous too.