Poetical Fanaticism
This was one of a handful of German films that made one think Western Civilization had a chance. I remember well seeing this for the first time back during my college days. We had all been through the New Wave and had grown a bit weary of the French "A Man and A Woman" school of romantic adventurers. This was what we've been waiting for. Serious, operatic, masculine, deep. One felt that German film was making a comeback since the glory days of the 1920s with early Fritz Lang and films like "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." The masterpiece of mood and implied meanings can be appreciated on so many levels. It is above all an artfully made movie, with beautiful cinematography and a haunting sound track. Kinski is memorably, although one might say he has little to do or say. It is his posture and his silence that play so large here. What a dark, brooding piece. It has been some thirty years since I last saw this marvel but it is not diminished in any way.

Masterpiece
Werner Herzog may just be the best film director of the last forty years. Period. And I mean worldwide. While some directors of film rely primarily on precision- think Alfred Hitchcock, intellect- think Ingmar Bergman and Stanley Kubrick, visual poesy-think Terrence Malick, or visceral reaction- think Akira Kurosawa, there is no other major filmmaker that I can think of who combines all of these things so skillfully, as well as having a mastery of music, outside of Herzog. From musical scoring to narrative pacing to visual imagery, he reigns supreme. Before watching his 1972 masterpiece, Aguirre: The Wrath Of God (Aguirre, Der Zorn Gottes), for the first time, all I had seen of Herzog were some of his documentary style films and Fitzcarraldo. This was enough to intrigue me to explore his corpus more fully, and I'm glad I did, for there's a reason this film made him a `name' on par with his contemporary German directors, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Wim Wenders.
Aguirre: The Wrath Of God is a film that combines the best elements of such diverse great films as Alien, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Apocalypse Now, although it is a much more visceral work than any of those films, and is topped off by one of the truly great screen performances of all time, with Klaus Kinski as the titular lead, Don Lope de Aguirre, a cripple who may also be a hunchback- whose outer deformities seem to have scarred him internally, as well. While there are numerous other supporting characters that turn in fine performances, Kinski utterly dominates the screen every second he's on it, moving like some perverse and slavering arachnid, moving in for the kill of an insect he will never bleed fully for he will never truly get it....Many critics often opt out of a real discussion of Herzog's excellence in craft by falling back on the old and misguided notion that he simplistically follows his whims and is guided by the same sort of madness he accuses Kinski of always fostering. Yet, any look at a film like this shows that Herzog transcends such myopic claims, even if unwittingly; although I seriously doubt the man who is such a scrupulous artist has ever let a foot of film be released under his name without a bit of wit applied to it. As for the screenplay? It is brilliant, knowing when to let the characters speak, and what they should say, and also relying on chance events, such as a flood which washed away Herzog's rafts. He incorporated that misfortune into the tale. Yet, what the film ultimately says means less than the whole experience, or how it is said through the art. Herzog's small budget becomes a strength when he cannot do overhead shots from a plane, or elaborate crane shots, nor delving close ups that gradually close in on someone, nor elaborate retakes....Herzog admits with justified pride that this film succeeds precisely because it does not follow the Hollywood formula: there is no real hero to root for, no predictable victory to cheer for, no visible bad guys, and no romantic interest for the leading character. Herzog amply demonstrates his superior art in the scene right after Ursua is taken away to be hung. His wife, Inez, who is repulsed by Aguirre, not attracted to him- as would be de rigueur in a Hollywood film, is shown in a shot from behind, simply gazing down at the dark and mystical river. The symbolism is simple, but immense and erotic, in its mix of death and sex, yet we never see her beautiful face, nor her svelte supple body heave. Herzog does not need to tell us that the woman is mourning her murdered husband. He thinks highly enough of his audience to assume that we get that, and also why she then later walks off into the jungle, albeit in a clean golden dress that comes out of nowhere (movie magic, Herzog proclaims in the commentary), sort of like all the stuff the refugees on Gilligan's Island somehow had. Similar scenes, featuring a captured Incan prince, reduced to slavery and interpretation with the natives, and the black slave Okello (Edward Roland- whose character was named after Zanzibarian madmen John Okello, from whose deluded speeches Herzog culled many of Aguirre's speeches), sketch real depths to these characters in only a few strokes.
Aguirre: The Wrath Of God is an indisputable masterpiece, and one of the greatest films not only of German cinema, but human cinema. That Herzog directed it when he was only twenty-eight years old is astonishing. Its combination of improvisation- for Herzog loathes storyboards, calling them the `disease of Hollywood', with an almost Bergmanian chamber drama focus on an individual, also makes it one of the most unique films ever crafted. It is a film to be seen by anyone with a love of art, intellect, and human nature, at any age, and in any age.

A true masterpiece
The sheer genius and madness of actor Klaus Kinski are brought to their full potential in support of this tailor-made, abysmal story. Spanish Conquistadors venture in the Amazon in search of gold. But their quest turns out to be more internal than material, with a desperate questioning about power, care, hope, civilization, pragmatism in the face of emptiness in a pristine world. Absolutely breathtaking acting and scenery. A violent, somber, desperate, ruthless but, overall, very human movie.

"I am the great traitor!"
So shouts Klaus Kinski's Aguirre (a play on the French word for "war"?) at one point in this beautiful but intensely disturbing film. The story is simple and familiar: European conquistadores rampage through the "New World" in search of glory, power, and wealth, and are eventually destroyed by the very world they seek to subdue.

In Herzog's hands, however, this familiar tale is told with all the poignancy it deserves. The mountains and jungles that surround the conquistadores create a sense of relentless isolation and loneliness--surely exactly what Joseph Conrad wanted to convey in "Heart of Darkness." The foolish pride of greedy men is expressed in the absurd conceit of making one of the band the emperor of the New World, and dressing him in a tattered purple blouse (he eventually dies of diarrhea, a fitting end). The barbarism of the conquistadores becomes fully revealed in the primeval jungle, where inhibitions drop away one by one. At one point, the band runs across the remains of a cannibal village, but it's clear that Herzog wants viewers to ask themselves who the real cannibals are. Toward film's end, everyone is dead save Aquirre, the evil genius of the band, and he's mad and doomed, captaining a tattered raft crawling with jungle monkeys and raving that he will marry his (dead) daughter and create a New World dynasty that will last forever. We, the viewers, of course know better. The forest will silently close over him, and it will be as if he never existed.

The interesting question raised by the film is just what Aguirre (and by implication, most of the rest of us) is a "great traitor" to. Most obviously the crown he vowed to serve, but more deeply to--what? Human dignity? Virtue? Ideals? Reason? God? This is the pat answer, but Herzog seems not to rest content with it. After all, the jungle closes in on the virtuous as well as the villainous, destroying each indiscriminately.

One of the best films ever made.

monkeys cannons no bears-oh my!
Poor dvd quality--there has to be a better edition out there (somehow I got a fullscreen copy, f**k!).
Cast and script--will challenge your patience if you are not already into Herzog and/or Kinski.
Personally found it disappointing, but more than watch-able. Herzog's obtusely insightful commentaries on his films alone are worth i t.