Where would you rather be? On a truck full of nitroglycerine in the South American mountains or on a raft on the totally unexplored Amazon with greedy religious fanatics in the 16th century?
Werner Herzog’s none-too-subtle but incredibly effective broadside against the hubris of colonialism, Aguirre, the Wrath of God is one of the German master’s finest films. It’s also the first of his five collaborations with the famously unpleasant Klaus Kinski, who is at his most effective and psychotic in the title role.
Our plot: In 1560, a group of 40 Spanish conquistadors, having done their part to conquer the Inca empire, head down the uncharted Amazon River on four rafts, in search of the golden city of El Dorado. It turns out to be a really bad idea.
A notoriously troubled shoot on some very inhospitable locations in the Peruvian rain forest, Aguirre was shot in chronological order, and, from all accounts, the dissolution off the screen seemed to feed into the sense of chaos and foreboding on the screen. The result is utterly mesmerizing, one of cinema’s finest renderings of a descent into the heart of darkness.