#Rui Polanah

[adamwatchesmovies]

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a unique experience. It puts you in the same state as its characters through its deliberately paced, minimalist story. They don’t know where the journey will end. Neither do you. It feels like someone is reading you the old, dusty pages of a journal that’s been dug up after decades of being forgotten. The “unimportant” moments - the kind you wouldn't mention in daily logs - are missing, which makes what’s not shown as important as what is. I wouldn’t want every film to be like Aguirre, but I’m glad this one is.

In 1560, Spanish conquistadors are convinced El Dorado, the legendary city of gold, is hidden deep in the Amazon jungle. With the search going nowhere and supplies running low, Gonzalo Pizarro (Alejandro Repullés) orders Pedro de Ursúa (Ruy Guerra) and a group of forty men (with their indigenous slaves) to build rafts and travel downriver to look for provisions. If they do not return within a week, their expedition will be considered lost.

The opening shot is a stunner. Simultaneously, we see the immeasurable power and folly of the conquistadors. The line of soldiers, noblemen and slaves traveling down the side of the Andes mountains is endless. When the camera zooms in to focus on the individual people, the spaniards look like ill-equipped martians clumsily making their way down the narrow path. In their metal armor (to defend against what?) with their halberds (to attack who?), following slaves who push cannons, wheel carts, and lavish litters carrying women dressed in fancy gowns, the expedition's imminent failure is obvious. Even if El Dorado did exist, how could they find it with this equipment slowing them down? Their quest is made even more foolish-looking by the camerawork. At first glance, the voyage looks epic. Then, reality sets in. Everything is short in a natural, unglamorous way. You "know" how this journey will end even before Don Pedro de Ursúa, his second-in-command Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) and Brother Gaspar de Carvajal (Del Negro) even step foot on their doomed raft.

Aguirre feels much longer than its 94-minute running time because once the journey to unknown places begins, that’s all the movie is. There are no character arcs. In fact, by the end, you barely know any of the characters. Each scene is like the highlights of a long, boring, doomed journey… that includes the sanity of the people in charge slipping away, daily attacks from unknown assailants, starvation, suspected murder, and death at every turn. It feels like journal entries brought to life in that Brother Gaspar wouldn’t have written about the life stories of the conquistadors who disappear in the middle of the jungle, or suddenly fall in the water because there’s an arrow sticking through their neck. All he does is tell us “Today, another man died. His last words were ….” The details aren’t important. What’s important is the way the movie makes you feel. Aboard the raft is a slave who knows how to play music. The only problem is that he only knows a single song, which he plays over, and over, and over. A jaunty tune becomes the sound of your sanity draining away. You see the crew making one bad decision after another, practically begging their journey to end in disaster. It can’t be that they don’t know what they’re doing. You get the impression that the jungle is compelling them to make the worst move possible. With the hallucinations that come in during the final scenes, the sudden bursts of violence that make you wonder if you just saw and heard what you did and the moments that couldn’t possibly have been scripted (they had to just happen while they were shooting), Aguirre feels so eerily real you feel like you're there. Like the men, you have no faith in any sort of satisfying ending but you keep moving forward.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a film for people who want something different. The plot is deliberately boring at times. Anywhere else, that would be a major flaw. Here, it enhances the experience. I know that doesn’t make any sense but that’s the thing. This movie doesn’t make any sense. It baffles you completely, which means it's unforgettable. (English dub, November 5, 2021)

[pekaho]

<3

[killer-klowns]

Aguirre, la colère de Dieu / Une flèche est si petite qu’elle semble avoir été tirée par un nain.

[junkielee]

[Last Film I Watched] Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

[Last Film I Watched] Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

English Title: Aguirre, the Wrath of God Original Title: Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes Year: 1972 Country: West Germany Language: German, Quechua, Spanish Genre: Adventure, Drama, Biography Director/Writer: Werner Herzog Music: Popol Vuh Cinematography: Thomas Mauch Cast: Klaus Kinski Helena Rojo Del Negro Cecilia Rivera Ruy Guerra Peter Berling Daniel Ades Edward Roland Armando Polanah Alejandro…