Aguirre, The Wrath Of God
If thereās any famous or notable actor in the history of cinema who has ever been described by others who had either met him or worked with him as being āevilā, it would have to be Klaus Kinski, a guy who was considered to be an utter madman in his real life personality and capable of incredibly depraved acts as a result (including the sexual abuse and / or rape of his daughters which not only would they claim but he also reportedly used to BRAG about, sometimes to total strangers).Ā As an actual actor, he was intense, charismatic and downright scary if he wanted to be, and made no bones about the fact that he would only accept roles that not only paid the most money, but would require as little of his time as possible (which led to his appearing in some downright terrible B movies as a result and also caused him to famously turn down the role of Nazi henchman Toht in Raiders Of The Lost Ark because a low budget film was willing to pay him more for being the star).Ā In addition, Kinski had a habit of pissing off and alienating several of his directors and co stars, leading many to label him as being impossible to work with (the fact that he was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder no doubt contributed to much of his behavior).Ā But there was one director, himself considered a megalomanical type in his own right (but was at least more stable in his behavior) who took on the challenge of not just working with Kinski once, but on five occasions over a period of 15 years and is reportedly respected by a lot of people for having done so.Ā His name is Werner Herzog and this 1972 release is the first of their often volatile collaborations which included many verbal and physical confrontations as well as death threats being lobbied back and forth.Ā It details a (real life) expedition made by Spain into the already conquered jungle regions of Mexico and South America (the film was shot in Peru) because after being conquered, the natives made up completely fabricated stories about a place called El Dorado, the lost city of gold, perhaps for the sole purpose of luring further expeditions by their conquerers into the region so that they may be picked off in ambushes by the natives as a form of revenge not to mention playing on their insatiable greed in the hunt for a golden city.Ā Kinski plays Don Lope De Aguirre, the second in command on the expedition (and the de facto military commander) who when realizing that the nobleman in charge has decided to abandon the search, conspires to have him taken out of the chain of command and worse, to have put in his place a fat slob of entitled nobility to serve as his puppet leader and thus be anointed as The Emperor Of El Dorado (even though they havenāt even found it yet) and thus press on in their search.Ā Eventually when this bloated excuse for an āemperorā gets too big for his britches (eating lavish meals while the other men starve, running off the only horse that they have for making too much of a commotion), Aguirre has him killed too and takes full command of the expedition.Ā He and all the men and supplies basically live on a giant raft and float downriver forever in search of what theyāre looking for in the jungle (with Francis Ford Coppola making it very clear that this film did very much indeed inspire Apocalypse Now).Ā The men are vulnerable to arrow and spear attacks (as they were in Apocalypse) and more importantly are always fussing about having enough food and supplies.Ā What makes things all the more disturbing is that while these men are freaking out knowing that every moment could be their last, Aguirre himself is completely undeterred and unperturbed, telling the crew that anyone who deserts will be subject to a gruesome death but that all who stay will have their names written in the annals of glorious history.Ā The story does take some departures from the real life Aguirre (remembered as being a traitor who was captured and executed via dismemberment) but in Kinskiās hands he becomes someone who literally declares himself with his own dialogue to be The Wrath Of God and if nothing else, displays a near superhuman tolerance and stamina in the adverse conditions he and the others find themselves in, not even getting a scratch on him while the others get speared and arrowed from all sides (not to mention becoming sick and feverish from the dirty water and conditions).Ā But as bad as he is, most of the other characters are portrayed as being just as bad in many ways whether it be from greed or outright hypocrisy.Ā This includes the friar monk along for the ride, a guy who declares that his own purpose on the trip is to be the conversion to Christianity of all the indigenous native people but yet still proudly helps Aguirre in betraying the expedition leader and later on when boasting to a freshly captured native about the power contained in the very Bible that he is holding, when handing that Bible to the native as if it were a sacred relic, the confused savage puts it to his ear (thinking he might hear the voice of God) and then throws the book down on the ground, prompting this same holy man to loudly advocate the execution of that native for his naĆÆve form of blasphemy.Ā The funny thing about much of the film is that many of the scenes feature Kinskiās Aguirre just merely looking on without a word in disgust or bemusement at the other characters with their philandering about trying to make any kind of civilized sense of their predicament usually because they are all in search of a fairy tale city of gold that has never existed (but wouldnāt it be just so wonderful if it did and they could somehow manage to find it??).Ā Whether Aguirre (or Kinski as Herzog deliberately shot much of the film in such a way as to purposely blur the lines between actor and character) is truly insane or otherwise just possesses an insane will to live that makes him tower over the other expedition members who spend much of the second half of the movie physically and mentally withering away while he continues to stomp around unaffected by any of it and fully expecting them to conquer anything that they find that needs to be conquered even if heās the only one doing it is something thatās probably best left up to the viewer (and any psychologists that might be sitting in the audience) to decide.Ā Reportedly Herzog (who had actually known Kinski since childhood) had recruited Klaus for the role while he was busy touring around Europe doing his one man show as āJesusā, a performance / interpretation that supposedly featured him yelling at the audience for not paying any attention to him, cursing often and fighting with a stagehand for trying to take his microphone away from him.Ā Saying that having this sort of twisted God complex made him ideal for the role is a bit of an understatement, but Herzog does manage to inject several little storytelling quirks into the narrative that are clearly and entirely his own especially in the last 20 minutes as the decaying mental states of all the characters is portrayed to its full potential, including somebody having their head chopped off in the middle of a sentence as the severed head finishes the sentence after hitting the ground, another character being fully impaled by a spear and then calmly and evenly intoning āI always thought this would hurt a lot moreā before falling back dead and the final attack where several characters go into irrational denial of the arrows that are pelting them by thinking out loud that itās just their minds playing a trick on them.Ā Kinski for his part reportedly nearly killed several cast members by getting too carried away with his swordplay, used a Winchester rifle to accidentally shoot off a couple of fingers off an extra and threatened to quit over having an issue with a mere sound assistant, leading to Herzog telling Kinski point blank that if he were to do so, he would kill Kinski and then himself while having it written up as a hunting accident (something that was confirmed by both men).Ā Ā Ā Eventually, when Kinski finds himself as the last man standing on his raft now surrounded by dozens of monkeys whom he now takes under his command to continue his quest, we realize that this exquisitely shot, low budget jungle adventure is not so much a journey into the heart of darkness, but rather truly the heart of madness brought on not so much by the desire for riches but rather by the desire to conquer and control at all costs until there is nothing left except for the desire to conquer even moreā¦
8/10