by Derek Smith 12/27/08

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There is a moment in Aguirre, the Wrath of God that symbolizes, for me, everything great about the film, from its shooting style and thematic content to Klaus Kinski’s body-driven performance and the way Herzog’s camera often seems to dance with his presence in and out of the frame. It is almost a throwaway moment; one I imagine came about only through dumb luck and Klaus Kinski’s barbaric intensity. In a perfect strike of fate, now forever captured and eternalized on celluloid, about halfway through the film, Kinski spins violently around in a fit of rage on the raft to meet a bothersome horse eye-to-eye. One might expect, at most, a push of the head to move him out of the way, but no, Kinski looks the great beast in the eye and screams with an intensity few other actors could ever match, “Get out of my way!” to which the horse not only quickly stutters aside, but slips and falls. I can think of no better way to sum up the madness of Don Aguirre’s quest for El Dorado than meeting something as impossibly huge and intimidating face-to-face and scaring the ever-living shit out of it.

Of course that is only one of many wondrous, confounding images within Aguirre that embody Herzog’s unique ability to find the real within the fictional – the “ecstatic truth” as he coined it – and blend the comical, tragic, heroic and revolting together into a combination that can only be deemed “Herzogian”. Aguirre’s lustful search for gold and power that drives its narrative is given complexity through his manipulations of everyone around him and the enigmatic way Herzog allows it to unfold via off-kilter compositions and jarring cuts. The trial scene in particular is interesting in conveying both the magisterial and animalistic nature of Aguirre as displayed in the power he holds over everyone around him. Kinski is framed to look as if he is hanging from a tree while Guzman and Aguirre’s puppet who is now “officially” in command of the group sits upon his throne in disinterested judgment while Ursua is lies at the bottom of the screen, as if his fate of death had already been announced. The scene is disorienting, hilarious and frightening all in one – something Herzog and Kinski’s collaborations often bring to the table.

What I ultimately find so remarkable about Aguirre, however, is the way it transforms its relatively low budget, a limitation for nearly any historical film, into a positive, using it to capture an historical time with intimacy while still creating a mystique that gives the film a unique, otherworldly quality. The initial climb down the mountainside has a documentary-like feel, not so much as a representation of history as putting you right there in the moment. This, coupled with the mesmeric Popol Vuh score, works not merely to hypnotize, but transport to a different time, making Aguirre’s mad journey down the river seem grounded in realism, yet a realism that is distinctly separate from a time or place I’ve known or could imagine existing. Then again, this is no surprise as there isn’t a single director with a better sense of combining the alien and the familiar than Werner Herzog.