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A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Coming off a recent vacation trip to Costa Rica, I was struck by the similarity of the Peruvian locations serving as the backdrop to this story. Our tour group had a couple of rain forest hikes along with two wildlife spotting river cruises, and if I didn't know better, I would have pegged the muddy brown, tranquil river in the movie as the Rio Frio. What struck me though was that the long views of the riverbanks in the picture offered no animal or bird life, which was in abundance on my excursions. Anyway, enough of that.The film begins with an impressive looking descent down a steep mountain pass, and as a harbinger of things to come, director Herzog chooses to focus his camera on long establishing shots, often times unnecessary as in the drawn out view of the turbulent river rapids early in the story. These serve to pad out the length of the picture, which is only a tad over an hour and a half to begin with. With the title acknowledging that the principal character is named Aguirre, it takes some time for Klaus Kinski to initiate the mutiny that takes over the expedition hunting for the mythical El Dorado, the ancient Inca Lost City of Gold. Aguirre is a fanatic, but allows some semblance of composure as second-in-command while undermining the authority of both the original leader Gonzalo Pizzaro (Alejandro Repullés), as well as that of Don Pedro de Ursua (Ruy Guerraas), the leader of the smaller expeditionary group.What's perhaps most revealing in the story is how difficult it must have been in an a pre-machine age for explorers to make their way through uncharted jungle territory. Watching men drag along cannon and Ursua's mistress (Helena Rojo) aboard a throne-like sedan chair seemed like an incredible waste of energy that eventually ended in a failed mission. And then one has to consider that the director, actors and film crew had to endure these same hardships for the sake of their craft. A 'making of' picture detailing the effort probably would have been as compelling as the film's narrative.I'd consider myself a Klaus Kinski fan, even though I've mainly seen him only as a villain in off-beat Western movie roles. He doesn't quite carry the entire picture here as the principal actor, but his presence does create an eclectic magnetism of a man obsessed by the idea of power, fame and riches. As his men are decimated by unseen arrows, spears and poison darts, his fateful descent into madness is complete, forever to be defeated by the relentless force of an unforgiving environment.

Klaus Kinski turns in a fantastic performance in this film, and his helmet and piercing blue eyes combine for an iconic image. He plays a power-hungry 16th century rebel who is hell-bent on finding the golden city of El Dorado to achieve riches and fame. I love how director Werner Herzog filmed on a location and really 'took us there', not only to the Amazon, but to a doomed feeling of hopelessness as the raft the Spaniards are on drifts downriver on a fool's errand. On the other hand, it's a bleak tale, and one in which little episodes such as natives approaching in a canoe and the Spaniards burning one of their villages are stitched together somewhat weakly, with jumps forward in time. The screenplay and editing seem disorganized, and while that may add to an overall dreamlike (or nightmarish), chaotic feeling, which was perhaps the point, it also made it a little less enjoyable for me. There are certainly some great images in the film, bookended by a caravan traveling through the mountains at the beginning, to Aguirre raving delusions of grandeur on a raft overrun with monkeys at the end. For me it's a good film, but not a great one.

Aguirre, the Wrath of GodBy the time technology makes exploring easy there's nothing left to discover.Which is why the adventurers in this drama didn't wait for Google Maps to exist.While on a Gonzalo Pizarro (Alejandro Repullés) lead expedition to find El Dorado, 16th century Spanish conquistador Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) is allocated to a small fleet sent down the Amazon river to scout ahead.Joining Aguirre on the raft is his daughter (Cecilia Rivera), his commander (Ruy Guerra), his commander's mistress (Helena Rojo), a nobleman and a priest.Aguirre's avarice eventually results in a mutiny. While his madness steers everyone aboard towards their deaths.German director Werner Herzog's disturbing depiction of colonialism, this cult classic uses fact on which to build its fictional account of Aguirre's descent into lunacy. Success is ultimately achieved thanks to Kinski's haunting performance.Incidentally, the only civilization the conquistadors are credited with discovering is crazy town.Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

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.