TheNabOwnzz In a way quite similar to Scorsese's Taxi Driver, Aguirre, the Wrath of God is primarily about a ride straight into madness. In this case this is due to the obsessive nature of humanity and the indifference one has with other concerns when faced with a promise of riches.It is a colorful, yet eerie and haunting movie because of the eeriness of the soundtrack and the visual deterioration of the expedition ( aswell as the unseen natives picking them off one by one ) as the journey progresses. There is a constant suspenseful silent feel around the film which seems like anything could happen at any moment. In the end it is obviously about Klaus Kinski's character and his greedy psychopathic madness which causes him to keep going on a never ending quest for El Dorado, a mythical illusion symbolizing the emptiness of man's obsessive compulsion.Klaus Kinski is, ofcourse, excellent as the crazed 'Don' Aguirre. His facial acting screams out the word 'madness' ( Quite possibly so convincing because Kinski himself has been described as a madman in real life. ) and his path strays further and further from humanity as the film progresses, eventually even showing indifference to his daughter. Unfortunately none of the other characters are quite as fascinating as Kinski, which makes the film in turn revolve more around him, but he carries it with such conviction that this does not lesser the film's quality by that much. There is little dialogue, and there is a lot of silence throughout the movie, emphasizing the inner dilemma of the question whether 'El Dorado' is even real.The movie's on location shooting results in beautiful shots all the way through. The first one is obviously the greatest one. In the first shot of the film, we see a staggering view of the entire expedition making its way down the mountain, symbolizing how little we are in quest for riches beyond our belief. As a combination of movement and cinematography, the opening scene also has to be one of the greatest and most beautiful openings to a film ever made. One of the slightly lesser qualities of the camera work seems to be Herzog's tendency to film with a moving camera on things like the rafts or at the indian village causing it to become quite bouncy and difficult to see what's going on. This was probably implemented to improve the audience's immersion, but still widescreen shots still seem like the better way to go.It is in the end not about a quest for gold, but a study on how greed affects the obsessive nature of man and changes a man for the worst. This obsession causes man to develop illusions of themselves to neglect any kind of argument that it cannot be real, and this is displayed perfectly in the final stages of the film. With a masterful Kinski performance, excellent on location cinematography ( except for lesser handheld shots ), a great psychology on greed and obsession and a great moral dilemma ( Ursua being the voice of reason, and Aguirre madness ) it is a great film.

Tweetienator Director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski did some fantastic and outstanding works together, besides Aquirre, the Wrath of God I would name Fitzcarraldo (1982), Cobra Verde (1987) and Nosferatu (1979).In Aquirre Kinski plays the ruthless and insane and passion driven Don Lope de Aguirre, leading a Spanish expedition of Conquistadors to find the city of El Dorado and plunder its riches for the Spanish crown and for himself. What most of them find is an endless jungle, heat, fever and other plagues, hostile natives and madness and finally death. Kinski is one of the few, rare actors who are able to play such intense characters like Aquirre without ridiculing them in on or the other way. And Werner Herzog is a daring director with vision and a look and care for details. Alone the tensions and group dynamics between the Conquistadors are superb choreographed.If you want outstanding movies for your dish, The Wrath of God and the other mentioned movies are made for you: what you get are intense acting, fabulous and unique story(telling) and a great production with (as far as I can tell) great care for historical accuracy.

Brian Berta When I looked at a summary of what this film would be about, I assumed that it was going to be a fast-paced action film. However, what I got was something entirely different. This film felt unique compared to other survival films, and I don't think that many other directors would be able to make it as good as good as Werner Herzog did. This is a kind of a film which gets more mysterious the more I think about it.In 1560, hundreds of Spanish conquistadors leave their home in the Andes mountains in search of the fabled country of El Dorado. Running low on supplies, 40 men are ordered to scout ahead by a raft on a river. If they don't return in one week, they will be considered lost, and everyone else will return without them. However, their expedition proves to be more and more dangerous as the days go by.As I said above, I was expecting something completely different. I was expecting a typical fast paced action/survival film. Instead, this movie had very few battle scenes. Most of the action showed a character hit by an arrow or die off-screen. We sometimes saw glimpses of Indians or heard gunfire in the distance, but every time a character was killed by the Indians, the enemy was always unseen. I feel like Herzog's reason for filming the action like this was to show how vulnerable the Spaniards were. It was almost like he was letting the audience know that they stood no chance against the Indians. This aspect also applies to other areas. For instance, after a group of people become untrusting of their leader Guzman, he is found mysteriously dead moments later. Another great scene is when one of the characters walks off into the jungle never to be seen again. However, the best use of this aspect involves the large group of people who waited for the 40 men to come back. Since they were never seen again in the film, it raised the possibility that they might be either struggling with the Indians or are already dead. I'd say that despite the exception of a single scene and a single line of dialogue, the action was perfect.The character of Aguirre is hard to describe. The reason I say this is because it's hard for me to decide whether he was meant to be a protagonist, an anti-hero, or a villain. If I had to choose, I'd say that he falls somewhere in the middle of being an anti-hero and a villain. He seemed like a character who cared about nothing more other than having everything done the way he wants and discovering El Dorado at all costs no matter how much of his men are still alive. He didn't seem to care about the fate of his crew (except for maybe his daughter). If any of his men would try to defy him, he wouldn't hesitate to end their life. A great plot point that given us insight to how mysterious Aguirre's character is was how he wanted Ursua to die. After Ursua is sentenced to death, the leader of the group (Guzman) prevents him from dying (an action which clearly infuriates Aguirre). After Guzman's mysteriously killed off, however, there's nothing stopping Aguirre from executing the man. With that being said, I feel like Aguirre killed Guzman, because that way, he'd be able to kill Ursua without anyone stopping him. Guzman's death seemed convenient for Aguirre. Aguirre is definitely one of the more memorable movie characters I've seen in a while.The visuals in this movie are also worth noting. They feel both awe-inspiring and unsettling. A great example of its visuals is the intro to the film. It does a great job introducing us to the environment the film takes place in. When the film starts off, we see hundreds of men and women marching down narrow paths in the mountains. The scope of this shot is amazing as it lets the audience know how insignificant the men are compared to the terrain they're walking across. It also gives you a feeling that the Spaniards and the Indians will encounter numerous hardships during their expedition. Another scene that has a similar feel to the intro is when we see the rafts floating down heavy rapids in the river. Both of these scenes show that Herzog isn't afraid of risking his crew's life just to make a film.There are also a few haunting visual set pieces. One of these scenes occur near the end when the Spaniards see a ship up in the trees. All of them react differently to it. One person thinks that it's a hallucination while another person thinks that it's real. Aguirre tells his crew to bring the ship down so they can use it to sail to the Atlantic, but one member of Aguirre's crew immediately refuses to do so - this is one of the only times in the film where a character disobeys Aguirre. This is a disturbing scene as it shows us how weak the mental state is of the remaining crew members. Another memorable scene is the ending where monkeys overrun the raft. That scene shows how Aguirre has been conquered by nature.In conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised with this film as it turned out to be completely different than how I imagined it would be. It's a brilliant film. It may not quite reach perfection, but it's still an outstanding and a unique film. The action scenes feel unsettling, Aguirre was a memorable villain, and the visuals evoked different moods from me. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for Herzog in the future.

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.