Aguirre, The Wrath Of God (1972)

(Originally released as Aguirre, Der Zorn Gottes)

Starring: Klaus Kinski,

First, the Lowdown: A madman leads a party of conquistadors in search of El Dorado.

Before the Spanish came, the Inca (much like the Aztecs and Mayans) thought of themselves as the pinnacle of civilization. Both culturally and scientifically advanced over their primitive cousins in the surrounding jungles, they felt secure in their magnificence. Then Francisco Pizarro came, with hundreds of soldiers – all armed with gunpowder, refined steel, and influenza. Soon even the leaders of the Inca were now humbled by this unstoppable threat. This is probably why they encouraged the rumors of El Dorado.

El Dorado, or “the Gilded One”, actually refers to a mythical ritual in which a priest would cover himself with gold dust as an offering to the local goddess as well as tossing gold craft work into a lagoon as sacrifice. This later would be interpreted as a folk tale of a hidden land, much like Avalon or Atlantis. The Inca never really believed in a lost palace made entirely of gold, it just made a good story to tell the foreigners. After being culled by the gold-crazed Spanish, it probably wasn't hard to revive the old legend and place a new spin on it. Rather than being a fabled lagoon with gold sacrifices piled on its floor, the Inca claimed it was an actual place. My guess is that it started as a practical joke that quickly got out of hand; and before long, many of the scholarly saw it as a way of disposing of the Spanish once and for all. Rather than having the arrogant and grabby Spaniards plundering their homelands and enslaving their people, why not point them in a vague direction along the Amazon and have them fall prey to the dangers of the inhospitable jungle and brutal natives that lived there?

In 1560, a party of explorers lead by Gonzalo Pizarro (Francisco’s half-brother) decided to search of this legendary city themselves. So confident in his ability to dominate the New World, Pizarro set about this expedition with a multitude of slaves, soldiers, clergy, servants, lackeys, artillery and women. As we watch them make their way down a steep and treacherous mountain path, we see how mistaken they were – one of their cannons falls to the side and explodes. To underscore just how much they underestimated the surrounding land when they approach the Amazon, they find it a raging torrent of muddy water. Undeterred, Pizarro is resolute in finding a way across; Aguirre, one of his lieutenants, disagrees.

It's only later when they realize how right Aguirre was. The native guides begin to die of pneumonia (probably brought over from the Spanish) and the further they trudge into the jungle, the more they become bogged down by the mud. Eventually Pizarro himself has misgivings about their quest. After much consideration, Pizarro assembles forty of his men and assigns them the task of traveling down the river to scout ahead, find food, and hopefully more information about the whereabouts of El Dorado. They must return in a week, however, otherwise he will call the entire expedition off. Among his men he chooses: Ursua (who will be accompanied by his wife Inez), Aguirre (who will be accompanied by his daughter, Flores), Guzman (a noble descendant of the Castilian royal house) and Brother Gaspar de Carvajal whose diary provides the narration for this journey.

It isn't long until trouble starts. On the first day of the journey, one of the rafts gets caught in an eddy by the shore and the men on board cannot free themselves from it. Ursua sends a group of men to help them out (a process that will take a day or two), but Aguirre wants to leave them and press onwards. In the night shots ring out and the next day the group finds the men on the raft dead, shot by their own muskets. Ursua orders that the men's bodies be brought back for a Christian burial, which rankles Aguirre for its inefficiency. In defiance, Aguirre tells one of his men to clean out the cannon they brought with them – by firing it at the raft carrying the dead men's bodies.

The next morning they group awakes to find that the river has swollen by 15 feet and their rafts have drifted off! Aguirre orders the men to cut down trees for lumber and salvage any spare metal they can for nails to make a new raft, but Ursua wants to cut his losses and go back. Aguirre is determined on finding El Dorado, though, and he organizes a mutiny among the men. Further emboldened, Aguirre appoints Guzman as the Emperor of El Dorado once they find it. However, as they travel along, it becomes more and more obvious that Aguirre is the one in control.

As a summary, the movie sounds almost inspired, but as a movie itself, it left me with much to be desired. Director Werner Herzog is very technically accomplished and his shots are lovely as usual. But for a movie that's barely 90 minutes, it feels about twice as long. And in some ways it works in the film's favor, a perilous journey plods along gruelingly and takes us along with it. In doing so however, my temperament went from “this is an interesting way to portray a doomed expedition” to “this is boring me to tears.” At one point I found myself craving action of some kind, to be only lukewarmly rewarded by a siege of a village – which already had been deserted. In short, I didn't find this movie nearly as gripping as a later film which would borrow much from it: Apocalypse Now.

Line of the movie: “You know, my child, for the good of our Lord, the Church was always on the side of the strong.”

Three stars. Now an excellent source of fiber!