Aguirre, the Wrath of God
The movie begins with an epic, dreamlike image. A long line of men hikes out of a cloud that obscures the peak of a towering mountain in the Andes. As if descending from the sky, the men— clad in steel helmets and body armor—follow a steep path down the face of the mountain toward what they will soon discover to be a nightmare of despair: the green hell of a forbidding jungle.
With that striking image, the movie Aguirre, the Wrath of God plunges you into a fictionalized retelling of actual events that occurred in the 1560s when a Spanish expedition led by the conquistador Gonzalo Pizzaro journeyed deep into the rainforests of the Amazon, in search of El Dorado, a mythical city of gold. Driven by a lust for riches like those plundered by the Spanish during their earlier conquests of the Aztec and Inca Empires, Pizarro brought with him an army of courtiers, mercenaries, soldiers, and indigenous slaves. Unbeknownst to Pizzaro, his expedition also included a paranoid, maniacal psychopath—an officer named Lope de Aguirre.
As portrayed by actor Klaus Kinski, Aguirre is a menacing madman. With a limp and a hunchbacked slouch similar to Shakespeare’s Richard the Third, Aguirre is tormented by the expedition’s endless slog through the hot, unforgiving jungle and by the constant threat of starvation. Consumed by a desire to mutiny and take control of the expedition himself, the only compassion that Aguirre feels is for his 16-year-old daughter who—incredibly—he has brought along with him.
Written and directed by the brilliant filmmaker Wener Herzog, Aguirre is a stunning achievement on every level. Filmed in remote jungle locations in Peru, the film is a surreal, “heart of darkness” journey that clearly influenced Francis Coppola in making his Vietnam epic, Apocalypse Now.
As recorded by history, he declares himself “the Wrath of God,” king of the jungle empire all around him.
When Aguirre eventually splits off from Pizarro’s expedition and travels by raft with a desperate band of followers into the perilous mouth of the Amazon, his delusional quest for glory and bloodletting is fully unleashed. As recorded by history, he declares himself “the Wrath of God,” king of the jungle empire all around him. For those unfortunate souls aboard the raft with him, there is no escape. Any hope they have of finding the mythical El Dorado is soon replaced by Aguirre’s reign of terror.
With a haunting, trance-like soundtrack by the German band Popul Vuh, with Klaus Kinski’s crazed, mesmerizing performance, with Herzog’s fearless desire to tell a story far outside the conventions of most modern films, with astounding visuals that required Herzog and his creative team to plunge into the Amazon rainforest with much of the same folly and bravado that drove the conquistadors centuries ago—I give Aguirre, the Wrath of God a legendary four out of four stars.
