Movie Review: Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) written and directed by Werner Herzog

A group of 16th-century Spaniards travel through South America looking for the city of El Dorado, a place Native Americans claim has more gold than anyone could possibly want. The large group bogs down after coming down a mountain. Supplies are dwindling, so the leader picks forty men to go on rafts down a river to look for a Christian settlement or El Dorado. The rafters should come back in a week if they are successful or not. The raft group is led by Ursua (Ruy Guerra) who has to bring his wife along. The second in command is Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) who has to bring his daughter along. Brother Caravajal (Del Negro) also goes with the group because they are ostensibly there to spread Christianity to the locals. The river journey is fraught with peril as the elements and the natives slowly take the lives of the Spaniards. If that were not problem enough, Aguirre has his own ambitions and attitudes (and takes some lives himself).

Since this is a Herzog film, the theme of man versus nature is the primary interest, with nature being brutal and nearly overwhelming. The natives are lumped in on the "nature" side of the conflict--they are unseen killers from the jungle shadows or enslaved coolies for the Spaniards. Their characters do not quite achieve the level of personhood. Aguirre is a laconic anti-hero. He seems only interested in getting to El Dorado. He works to keep the group going in that direction. When people want to return to the main group, they are killed outright. Ursua is wounded at one point and Aguirre has another nobleman put in charge rather than himself. The new nobleman is even easier to manipulate. Aguirre looks on himself as a force of nature (he calls himself "the Wrath of God") but he isn't an equal with Nature herself. The expedition falls apart by the end of the film (not a spoiler, since the movie opens with excerpts from the priest's journal, the only surviving element from the expedition). Aguirre is both practical and insane, recommending expeditious actions that aren't always morally worthy choices.

Visually, Herzog has a brutal realism in his depiction of the jungles and the river. The passage downriver is either chaotically dangerous or languidly drifting, threatening to take lives instantly under the water or slowly without enough food. The Spaniards look miserable and weary. Hope fades and fades as the story goes on. The film is a bit mesmerizing even as things get worse and worse.

Recommended--there's a lot of interesting stuff here but it is a bit of a slog to get through, even for the viewers.