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dweemeister · 7 years

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Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972, West Germany)

The Age of Discovery among European powers resulted in power systems and societal structures influenced by their desire for treasures real and imagined. Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God takes place almost a century after the first Europeans set foot on the Americas. Though not Herzog’s debut feature film, Aguirre would become his introduction to audiences beyond West Germany with his unorthodox production habits and gargantuan scope in relation to its small budget. For Aguirre began shooting without a screenplay or storyboarding, and Herzog subjected his cast (this would be the first of five Herzog collaborations with actor Klaus Kinski, who plays Aguirre; the two would develop a toxic working relationship explained later in this write-up) and crew to shoot in horrid, life-threatening conditions. Anyone else other than Herzog who participated in making the film on-location might believe the suffering was not worth the final product; that Herzog, like Aguirre, led them on a downriver journey of vanity.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a quiet, minimalist indictment of colonial hubris and cultural myopia that exacerbated the suffering of untold numbers of indigenous American peoples and – as is depicted within this film’s ninety-four minutes – the gruesome deaths of European explorers. It is an account of unchecked madness and lust for power, without any need but for its images to present its themes.

Conquistador Gonzalo Pizzaro’s (Alejandro Repullés) is leading his men down the Andes Mountains into the outskirts of the Amazon Basin. Pizarro has chosen Don Pedro de Ursúa (Ruy Guerra) to spearhead an expedition down the Amazon to find El Dorado – the legendary city of gold. Ursúa and his forty men have been given a week for their expedition; after that, they will be considered lost. Don Lope de Aguirre (Kinski) is appointed second-in-command while nobleman Don Fernando de Guzmán (Peter Berling), Brother Gaspar de Carvajal (Del Negro), and – inexplicably – Ursúa‘s mistress Doña Inés (Helena Rojo) and Aguirre’s daughter Florés will also come along. Disaster strikes early and often for Ursúa and his subordinates as nature and the Amazonian tribes strike terror and wage violence against the conquistadors. Aguirre, sensing the deteriorating morale among the men, seizes power in a mutiny, forcing the others to elect de Guzmán as Emperor of El Dorado and declaring warfare against any Spanish subjects. Don’t expect a happy ending.

This film is a loose, largely fictionalized account of what happened when Pizzaro sent this expedition went on its way – extant accounts clash over what actually happened. Nevertheless, while shooting in the Peruvian rainforest and along the Amazonian tributaries, Herzog, cinematographer Thomas Mauch, and editor Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus pace the action deliberately. The characters – and the audience – are immersed into the immensity of the jungle. Their never-ending river voyage to an unknowable place only seems further away as they progress, with faceless natives, disease, and nature bringing death and madness. God’s wrath means little to those ignorant of it; god-fearing country this is not. The folly of the Spanish (having taken Spanish classes in school, I could not help but be distracted that everyone was speaking German; others will not be as distracted) is embodied by how their war party is poorly suited to this environment – the heavy armor that limits mobility, bringing women dressed more for medieval court than for strenuous travel, a cannon frequently stuck in the mud and requiring too many men to transport it, and an overdependence on their hundreds of indigenous slaves. If these conquistadors and slaves were not succumbing gruesomely in an endless rainforest, Aguirre, the Wrath of God might instead be a costumed farce.

Excluding economic exploitation, the underlying dynamic in imperialism is the monopoly on coercive force. The person or group that yields that monopoly is too difficult, by design, to rebel against. And even among the conquistadors, they are victims of their own strictly hierarchical system where dissent is treated with torture or executions, where submission and loyalty are treasured above all. These subordinates, once Aguirre has seized authority, might as well have the same agency as the wordless slaves standing around. Mass, industry-based colonization has not widely arrived in the Americas by the time of the events of this film, but the moral devastation of all participants in that system is foreshadowed in this doomed expedition.

Catholicism, past and present, leans heavily on the doctrine of theological determinism – also known as predestination – in which human nature has been predetermined by God and free will does not exist or exists in extremely limited fashion. All things being inevitable, Herzog – who also produced the film and wrote its screenplay – attempts to translate those ideas into Aguirre’s characterization. Klaus Kinski’s Aguirre seems mentally unstable from the moment when we first see him; his posture threatening, his gait agitated. Indeed, his behavior becomes far worse by the film’s conclusion (for Kinski, it’s a fantastic performance, and the only notable one in this movie). But even when combined with Herzog’s minimalism and the stark images and narration the open the film, where is Aguirre’s mentality emerging from? With Pizarro and other conquistadors seeming to be dispirited, but determined to accomplish their goals after months of fruitless wandering, why is Aguirre – with Kinski’s always-piercing, unsettling eyes – the only character who seems to have taken leave of his senses? Is Herzog playing God and predetermining that madness, wrath for his title character? If so, this is not as valuable a profile of mental illness as some of the film’s proponents claim it to be. This need not be achieved through dialogue, as so much of Aguirre, the Wrath of God’s power is derived from its silence. Spontaneous insanity – without warning or motivation – is a fiction. Herzog subscribes to that fiction here, devaluing his film.

With dreams of immortality infernally dancing in his head, Aguirre’s monstrous ego consumes itself. The film’s savagery resides with Aguirre’s increased inability to see how his decisions are harming others. His words become Revelatory (with a capital “R”), disconnected from reality and simple decency. This descent into darkness – from its themes to the artistry involved – will be familiar to those who have seen Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979; itself based on another tropical river voyage commenting on imperialism that encounters man-made catastrophe in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness).

Progressive, new-age rock band Popol Vuh provided the haunting film score. The primary utilization of the “choir organ”/Mellotron – two to three voices would simultaneously to create whatever harmonic depth there can be with an electronic instrument intending to mimic a choir – to drive the music assists in deepening Aguirre’s otherwise disappointing characterization. Otherwise, music is used sparingly in Aguirre, the Wrath of God, but what little music there is is incorporated in a way that empowers the film, even if it sounds like mere ambiance listened apart from context.

Like Coppola in Apocalypse Now, Herzog put everyone on set through wretched conditions. The combustible Kinski, like Aguirre, displayed behavior around the cast and crew (the former usually did not see a screenplay until minutes before shooting; the latter comprised of eight people on-set) that no one should have to endure. One day, Kinski – angered at the excessive noise coming from a nearby hut – fired three gunshots inside, blasting away the tip of an extra’s finger. Firearms also played a factor during a situation where Kinski wanted a sound editor fired. There, according to Herzog’s account (Kinski denied the following), the director threatened to kill Kinski before shooting himself, too. Kinski changed his mind about the sound assistant. For any aspiring filmmakers who might be reading this piece, may your future productions never descend into the threats and acts of violence described here.

If some of Werner Herzog’s storytelling falls apart in its characterizations, it is saved by the themes depicted and questions not often asked by white European filmmakers. Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a historical fiction epic with an execution so rapturous, despite its barebones budget. The promises of adventure and glory for these Spanish conquistadors will dissolve into dejection, desolation, despair – their nation’s colonial fate not predestined by an intangible force or being, but by the conceit of having designs for joining history through conquest and militarism.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

#Aguirre the Wrath of God #Werner Herzog #Klaus Kinski #Helena Rojo #Ruy Guerra #Del Negro #Peter Berling #Cecilia Rivera #Alejandro Repulles #Thomas Mauch #Beate Mainka Jellinghaus #Popol Vuh #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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