Aguirre: The Wrath of God

Here we have three talents at the top of their games. Florian Fricke (Popul Vuh) delivers his finest score, an otherworldly miasma of odd sounds. Klaus Kinski is hypnotic as the megalomaniacal title character, driven by ambition and delusion. And Werner Herzog does what he does best: transports us to strange and exotic corners of existence, setting up one mysterious image after another. Haunting and mesmerizing.

Stunningly gorgeous film that perfectly captures the vast wilderness of the jungle and the depths of human ambition and madness. Kinski is compelling as the mad Aguirre, and the movie is filled with haunting scenes detailing the consequences of his delusionary cruelty.

A hallucinatory march towards death, led by a maniacal visionary with an unslakeable thirst for power. Here, nature is no less than a malevolent entity, ancient and awesome beyond reason or reckoning, against which the petty desires and grievances of man appear utterly trivial.

It's hypnotic. It's impossible to look away.

Aguirre personifies three things: He is the admirably inexhaustible, gloriously unrelenting spirit of man; he's the very essence of gluttony, greed, stupidity and vileness; and he is indeed, exactly as his insanity drives him to proclaim, "the wrath of god" in the sense that he is a punishment to everyone and everything around him. Herzog achieves a singular portrait of humanity, both ridiculous and grim, by eliminating the boundaries between the three.