Tyreece Hulme
One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
Calum Hutton
It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
Jemima
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
Kirpianuscus
demonstration of the work , based on strange, disturbing war between a great director and a special actor. a historical film who use the past as reminder of basic sins, deep solitude, portrait of ambition fruits. a kind of Shakespeare and Greek tragedy. cruel, honest, beautiful. fresco of madness. and Klaus Kinski. out of script or scenes or dialogues. himself as a story of fury and desire and isolation in the womb of his truth. Aguirre is more than a good /impressive/terrible / great film. it is a struggle. not surprising. but useful for discover a manner to transform history as a large mirror of the essence of humankind. and this does Aguirre, the Wrath of God in a story about limits of dream. one o the most convincing.
Steve Ford
And really there is not much else to say. The power of vaunting ambition and personal magnetism in defiance of all reason. Seems like a highly apposite kind of film to watch in this era. "We will go on, we will persist, we will do this, we will make it happen against all possible reason."As regards the cinematography, yes it's kind of beautiful, yet it's also obviously realistic and plain and un-graded, not lush, not drenched in greenery or blue skies like you might expect from reviews mentioning how excellent it is. Do not expect Avatar style CGI because it ain't here. Herzog's Amazon is a world of brown mud and grey and very muted green.
Charles Camp
My expectations going in to this film were pretty high given its critical acclaim and reputation. Grizzly Man is the only other Herzog film I have seen and it happens to be my current favorite documentary of all time, so needless to say I was quite excited to see another film by him. And I'm happy to report that, although on a first viewing I didn't love it to quite the same degree as Grizzly Man, Aguirre: The Wrath of God definitely did not disappoint. I was quite interested to see what Herzog's style would be like as a filmmaker working with his own script and actors rather than as a documentarian. Based only on this film, he definitely seems to have a very deliberate, methodical air to his direction. The entire film is very even-toned and it slides along at a steady pace that feels neither fast nor slow. There is definitely an emotional coldness to the film that feels almost Kubrickian. None of the characters are very relatable or likable; quite the contrary in fact - they are consumed by greed, selfishness and delusions of grandeur, our "hero" in particular. Thus, there is an emotional distance between the audience and the characters that is definitely reminiscent of a Kubrick film.And ironically, despite the fact that I turned to this movie as my first Herzog non-documentary, the film almost feels like a documentary. The way the film is shot with hand-held camera and without any pomp or dramatization makes everything feel so real and authentic. It's very obvious that everything in the film was done for real on location and that is to its advantage as you really feel like you're there with these men rather than just watching a dramatization.This ultra-realism also works very well in bringing the themes of the film through and making them resonate. The film is clearly about man's misguided and even delusional thirst for power. Aguirre embodies this more than anyone in the film - a man with very clear delusions of grandeur who fancies himself a god despite clear evidence that his expedition is futile and doomed to failure. Klaus Kinski gives a spectacular performance in this role which is even more impressive given his relatively minimal amount of dialogue. He just has such an ominous presence on screen, his face perpetually twisted in a snarl, and he becomes almost hypnotic to watch as the film goes on.And it isn't just Aguirre. Essentially every Spaniard in the film engages in treachery at least once, including the holy man who utters one of the most searing lines of the film: "You know, my child, for the good of our Lord, the Church was always on the side of the strong." Ouch. These men commit mutiny, elect "emperors", make grand declarations of land ownership, and hold trials with their only audience being the indifferent tangle of vegetation and the raging river. The realism of the film perfectly captures how delusional these men really are as they parade around with their notions of power and fame in the middle of the jungle. Nothing could be further from the truth as they slowly succumb one by one, lost in a foreign and foreboding land. And their impossible goal of finding El Dorado, the imaginary city of gold, is the perfect metaphor for their delusion. A great strength of the film is that the way this theme is executed feels so universal. Herzog isn't just showing us the madness of these particular men in this particular scenario, he's showing us the madness of man in general. He showing us that these illusions of power are just that - illusions. In the grand scheme of the world and the universe, the titles of men are meaningless and transient.Aguirre: The Wrath of God is a powerful film and an impressive achievement from a filmmaking perspective. However, it is definitely not a movie that is out to entertain or dazzle its audience. It is a film of ideas rather than plot or spectacle. Really the only criticism I can make of the film on a first viewing is that there were some moments of humor which felt a bit out of place given the tone of the film - a man makes a quip after being shot with an arrow or a decapitated head speaks its last word. There is definitely an absurdity to the film and you could argue that these scenes play to that, but I felt these moments perhaps went a bit to far and were too cartoony to mesh well within the film's fabric of realism. Regardless, it's a minor complaint which does very little to sour an otherwise excellent film.
avik-basu1889
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.
