Wednesday, May 6, 2015


Movie Review

Aguirre the Wrath of God (1972)

April 4, 1977


Published: April 4, 1977

In 1560, not quite twenty years after the death of Francisco Pizarro, who had conquered Peru for Spain, an elaborately provisioned party of conquistadores set out from Quito to find the land of El Dorado. It was a fearful journey first to cross the Andes but even worse on the other side. Those who didn't starve, drown, or die of fever in the Amazon jungles were in constant danger of being killed by Indians.

When it became apparent the entire expedition could not go on, a small task force was commissioned to continue down the Amazon for a week. In command were Pedro de Ursua and his aide, Lope de Aguirre, sometimes referred to in history books as Aguirre the Madman or Aguirre the Traitor. They never returned.

Exactly what happened afterward is unclear but it seems that Aguirre murdered Ursua, declared the little band's independence from Spain, and crowned a man named Fernando de Guzman, the ranking nobleman among them, "Emperor of El Dorado." He eventually murdered Guzman and was himself murdered by his own men when they at last reached South America's northeast coast.

This story, one of the more bizarre and bloody footnotes to the history of the Spanish conquests, is the basis for Werner Herzog's absolutely stunning 1972 German film, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, which opened yesterday at the D. W. Griffith Theater. The movie was shot by Mr. Herzog (The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser, The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner, Even Dwarfs Started Small) on locations of breathtaking beauty (and, I must assume, of horrendous difficulty) in South America, but it's no ordinary, run-of-the-rapids adventure.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God is simultaneously a historical film (to the extent that it follows events as they are known) and a meditation upon history. Aguirre is truly mad, but as played by Klaus Kinski, whose crooked walk and undiluted evil recall Laurence Olivier's Richard III, he is the essential civilized man, a fellow who, in Mr. Herzog's vision of things, must be lunatic.

There's an eerie moment in the middle of the film when the Emperor, sitting in rags under an improvised shade on the makeshift raft that is carrying the party down the Amazon, picks at his fish dinner (the other men are starving) and thinks with satisfaction that his "empire" is now six times as large as Spain's. No matter that he too may never eat again, nor that his empire is jungle swamp, the sense of power is so intoxicating that it overwhelms all other considerations.

It's as if Mr. Herzog were saying that civilization—our assumption that we have conquered nature or even come to some accommodation with it—is as ridiculous as the Emperor's pleasure.

From the film's opening sequence, when we see the conquistadores, their women (including Ursua's wife being carried in an elegant litter), and their Indian porters making their way down an Andean slope, looking like the inhabitants of an ant palace, to the concluding shots of Aguirre on his raft in the company of hundreds of tiny marmosets, Mr. Herzog views all the proceedings with fixed detachment. He remains cool. He takes no sides. He may even be slightly amused. Mainly he is a poet who constantly surprises us with unexpected juxtapositions.

The film is incredibly rich and lush looking. It is tactile. One can feel the colors of the jungle and see the heat. The conquistadores endure terrible trials—whirlpools, Indian attacks, rebellion within their own ranks—yet the mood of the film is almost languid. Ursua's faithful, loving wife, played by a classic beauty named Helene Rojo, throws no tantrums when her husband is executed. She watches and waits, and when the opportunity arises, she walks off to her own death in the jungle as if going to a tea.

Contrasting with this peculiar languor is the radiant madness of Aguirre, who hypnotizes his soldiers into following his wildest instructions, who sneers at men who seek riches when power and fame are all that matter, who aspires to be nothing less than the wrath of God, and who, at the end, is planning to create a new dynasty by marrying his dead daughter. He's mad but he's a survivor.

This is a splendid and haunting work.


Produced, written (in German, with English subtitles), and directed by Werner Herzog; director of photography, Thomas Mauch; edited by Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus; music by Popol Vuh; released by New Yorker Films. Running time: 90 minutes.

With: Klaus Kinski (Don Lope de Aguirre), Ruy Guerra (Don Pedro de Ursua), Del Negro (Brother Gaspar de Carvajal), Helena Rojo (Inez), and Cecilia Rivera (Flores).