Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Directed by Werner Herzog, Aguirre, the Wrath of God follows a Spanish expedition, eventually led by Klaus Kinski’s volatile Don Lope de Aguirre, as it attempts to locate the legendary city of gold, El Dorado. Filmmaker Herzog delivers a striking, enthralling opening sequence that ultimately proves to be the movie’s high-water mark, as Aguirre, the Wrath of God kicks off with a hypnotic stretch detailing dozens of characters’ journey down a perilous mountain – with the impact of this interlude heightened by Thomas Mauch’s stunning cinematography and Popol Vuh’s haunting score. It’s only as the picture progresses into its erratically-paced, hit-and-miss midsection that one’s interest begins to flag, as Herzog employs an exceedingly (and often excessively) deliberate pace that exacerbates the movie’s problems and, to an increasingly palpable extent, prevents the viewer from working up much interest in or enthusiasm for the protagonists’ exploits. (The underdeveloped nature of all of the movie’s periphery figures certainly doesn’t help alleviate this vibe, surely.) Kinski’s intense yet rather one-note turn as the obsessive central character is essentially (and effectively) the final straw in what’s ultimately a hopelessly uninvolving misfire, with the cruelty towards animals throughout, particularly an unpleasant bit of horse-related business, cementing Aguirre, the Wrath of God‘s place as an irrelevant and sporadically interminable piece of work.

*1/2 out of ****