Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Sadly Over-hyped

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski did some fantastic and outstanding works together, besides Aquirre, the Wrath of God I would name Fitzcarraldo (1982), Cobra Verde (1987) and Nosferatu (1979).In Aquirre Kinski plays the ruthless and insane and passion driven Don Lope de Aguirre, leading a Spanish expedition of Conquistadors to find the city of El Dorado and plunder its riches for the Spanish crown and for himself. What most of them find is an endless jungle, heat, fever and other plagues, hostile natives and madness and finally death. Kinski is one of the few, rare actors who are able to play such intense characters like Aquirre without ridiculing them in on or the other way. And Werner Herzog is a daring director with vision and a look and care for details. Alone the tensions and group dynamics between the Conquistadors are superb choreographed.If you want outstanding movies for your dish, The Wrath of God and the other mentioned movies are made for you: what you get are intense acting, fabulous and unique story(telling) and a great production with (as far as I can tell) great care for historical accuracy.

As Bette Davis said: Fasten your seat belts, this is going to be a bumpy ride.A tough film to classify, let alone enjoy, "Aguirre The Wrath Of God" is at times an adventure story, a psychodrama, a surrealist tone poem, and a black comedy. What keeps it together is the visual splendor of its real-life setting – the Amazonian rain forest – and a mesmerizing central performance by the moldbreaking Klaus Kinski.In the beginning of 1561, a team of Spanish explorers are sent off by Gonzalo Pizarro to locate the fabled city of gold, El Dorado. They decide in short order to break away and declare their independence instead, as a self-declared empire under the nominal command of one Fernando de Guzmán (Peter Berling) but really run by the unhinged Lope de Aguirre (Kinski), who seems to be taking his orders from the wild jungles that surround him.Writer-director Werner Herzog gets strong mileage from riding the anarchy of both Kinski's performance and the Amazon River, delivering a powerfully immersive cinematic experience. It never quite gels as a story or character study, instead focusing on stand- alone images that remain in one's mind after the film is over."Our land is already six times larger than Spain, and every day we drift makes it bigger," Guzmán gloats."Have you seen any solid ground recently to support your weight?" Aguirre sneers.What is the point of the movie? Herzog himself says it was written in a sudden burst of creativity, without much attention to historic detail. I see it as a send-up of man's hubris, thinking they can build something ordered and profitable where "God's creation is not finished." But there are not a lot of signposts to work with here.It's a fascinating film, however muddled. You can watch the German- language version and the English-language version and get two very different experiences. Aguirre himself comes off a little less nutty in the English version, which also offers more context as to what is going on. Both versions are dominated by an awesome silence, however.Exactly when Aguirre and his crew go over the edge is hard to say. Actually, in the very beginning of the film, Aguirre is the sane one, telling Pizarro "we're all going to go under" when the latter airily pronounces the worst is over. But once Pizarro sets him loose, Aguirre seems to work up an appetite for self-destruction that only Indian arrows can cure."I'm the greatest traitor," he tells his crew, late in the movie when there's much less of them to order about. "There must be no other."As tedious as "Aguirre" the film often gets, with long static shots of non-actors talking to themselves and repetitious scenes featuring variations on cruel death and vainglory, it never bores with Kinski at the helm. His beady eyes and wild shoulder motions are used to masterful effect. Apparently, Herzog worked Kinski on-set to freak out often, just so the actor would then cool down and the director could then film shots that work. The result is a quiet but menacingly unstable performance that keeps an otherwise random- feeling film together all the way.I can't quite get on board with the masterpiece verdict many spout, but for 94 minutes "Aguirre" runs you through the mill and gives you a lot to chew on. Not perfect, just pretty good.

I was interested in seeing this movie upon seeing it appear in Roger Ebert's list of Top 10 favorites movies of all time. I think it might have been the only Foreign Language film on the list. Then again, I think "La Dolce Vita" might have been there too. I'll just say it's his pick for best foreign language film. And honestly? I think it's probably mine too. I'm normally not into Foreign Language films, but this is a breathtaking exception. The plot is quite basic, with a group of Spanish explorers searching for the legendary El Dorado.I am reminded of reading the book "War And Peace". It was great just to see the area being described, but it was the deep dialogue that really made it readable (is that a word?). The same works here. The camera work is among the best I have ever seen in a movie. I just love the way it shows people off in the distance and how it focuses on the most important things. Everything about this movie just looks beautiful. I love the costumes, I love the animals (who must be real), I love the environment, it's simply a gorgeous film. There is some action in it, but for the most part, they just have realistic stuff going on. The entire movie takes place outside and I don't think anyone is ever in a house.That's a wonderful and unique way to film. Even the very first scene had me hypnotized. It's beautiful to see these people being led along a mountain. Near the end of the movie, the title character Aguirre is told there is probably no golden city, but wants to conquer whatever he finds. Mixed throughout the film are insightful messages about politics and religion and the true motivations behind these ideals. It's one of the most philosophical movies I've seen in a long time. The title is spoken in a wonderful way as this is how Aguirre sees himself. The film never really ends, it just stops with little progress made in the entire story. It works wonderfully that way.What's great is just how amazingly realistic this film is. It shows how we crave glory and how we act around people of different races and beliefs. Everything just molds together for a wonderful visual feast. Near the end, we're not even sure of what's real. A guy is hit with an arrow, but it might just be in his (or someone else's) imagination. It is this delusion that makes us question exactly what goes on around us. After watching such horrible movies like, "They Saved Hitler's Brain", "Dracula Vs. Frankenstein", and "Doomsday Machine" this was an inspiring thing to watch. The only bad thing about this movie is that it's only a hour and a half! It seemed more worthy of being a truly epic film. Still, it works wonderful with its time and I obviously recommend it. ****

Werner Herzog's 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' is not a film that can be merely watched, it has to be experienced. While watching the film, I truly thought that Herzog didn't just convey a story, he put a bit of his heart and soul on screen. The film stars Herzog's frequent collaborator, the eccentric and volatile Klaus Kinski who plays the titular role of Aguirre. Although the story is loosely based on real events, the script is pretty much a fictional account of the travels of a Spanish soldier named Lope de Aguirre who leads a group of conquistadores and their Indian slaves down the Amazon river in South America to find El Dorado, the city of gold.The film commences with a prolonged single shot of the line of conquistadores with the Indian slaves going down a mountain and the shot is slightly obscured by the mist. The camera stays stationary while it captures the scene. It is a shot that is immensely beautiful in its surrealism while also being thematically transcendental. The men look like ants walking in a straight line. They have huge ambitions of conquering lands and becoming rich, but they are nothing but tiny ants in comparison to the vastness of the mountain and the surrounding elements of nature. Popol Vuh's haunting music lends a spiritual undertone to the entire film.I believe this film is about man's obsession with power, fame and superiority and how God in the form of nature can be completely indifferent to these obsessions and ambitions. I think the principle of accepting nature as God like it is done in some religions like Hinduism is the basis of interpreting the meaning of the film. When the conquistadores led by Aguirre try to ransack nature, nature hits back. All the deaths happen off- screen. We are never shown anyone firing the arrows at the conquistadores. We just see the arrows flying towards them, almost creating the impression nature is fighting back and thwarting the greedy conquerors. This aspect of man's mad obsession falling prey to the nature's forces was clearly an inspiration for Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now'. Aguirre is the manifestation of the greed and lust for power that humanity can fall prey to internally. His obsession spreads through the others in the mission and anyone who questions Aguirre gets dealt with mercilessly. Considering that this film was the creation of a German filmmaker, I found it very difficult to not think about Hitler and Nazi Germany. Aguirre shares Hitler's colonial obsession with annexing other countries and conquering nations. We also get another similarity between Hitler and Aguirre in their desire to create a pure dynasty. The film's production and shooting processes have become infamous due to all the troubles that Herzog had to face in the form of lack of money, highly treacherous filming locations and the anger of the extremely volatile Klaus Kinski. But he kept on persisting and his obsession in making the film almost mirrors Aguirre's unflinching obsession to find 'El Dorado'. There are many signature shots of Herzog's surrealist film language like the shot of a ship hanging at the top of a tree, a scene where Aguirre holds a newborn sloth and is appreciating its beauty and telling his daughter how naive it is and how it has remained asleep for the major portion of its life, but we know that Herzog clearly wants to say that it is the humans who are sleeping and naive in trying to assert their superiority over nature. Herzog also critiques religion in the film. There is a clear distinction that Herzog establishes between organised religion and God. His guerilla style of filmmaking actually accentuates and captures the madness in the story instead of serving the purpose of being a gimmick. Apart from Werner Herzog, the other person whose name has to be mentioned is Klaus Kinski. Everyone mentions Anthony Hopkins in 'Silence of the Lambs' when talking about an actor having an immense impact and owning a film with very limited screen time, I think such a discussion should also include Kinski's portrayal of Aguirre. Even with limited screen time Kinski has an undeniably chilling impact. Every gesture and every mannerism of his is expressive. His character's madness and obsession gets expressed through his postures and his eyes. This is one of those legendary screen performances that not only ornaments the film, but also ends up elevating it.To end this review I will analyse the last shot of the film. The final images will stick with me forever due to the beauty and the depth of what's on screen. There are corpses lying everywhere on the raft. Aguirre is the sole figure still standing. He holds his dying daughter. We see Aguirre's hand soaked in his daughter's blood which figuratively conveys that her death is on his hands and in the bigger picture it establishes the perils of the coming generations due to the greed fuelled obsessions of their ancestors. Now we had earlier seen the soldiers torturing animals, but now a group of numerous monkeys are seen invading the raft, thus signifying nature completing its revenge. Aguirre is still holding on to his deluded obsessions and moving on. This is one of the most beautifully poignant ending to any film I have ever seen.Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a philosophical work of art. It is not for everybody and I can only recommend it to hardcore art-film lovers. But the themes explored in the film are giant-sized. I can't stop thinking about it even after days of watching the film.Aguirre says that he is the 'Wrath of God' and then looks directly at the camera. He thinks he will do whatever he wants and no one can stop him. His naivety prevents him from realising that he is not the 'Wrath of God', he is just a victim of the same.