Aguirre, den gale erobrer
It is a new
year on the List and the movies are now only 48 years old, yay! The first 1972
movie is “Aguirre: the Wrath of God” and I would have loved to say that 1972 is
starting strong, but I am not entirely convinced.
“Aguirre”
is a movie by Werner Herzog, a prolific director who is still making movies
today, but strangely enough I have watched very few of his works. Well, that is
what the List is for, to let us see movies we would otherwise have missed.
It is 1560 and
Pizarro’s band of conquistadors have successfully taken down the Inca empire
and robbed it clean. Now their eyes are set on the next price: El Dorado, where
the streets are covered with gold and if there is something a conquistador
cannot resist then it is gold.
Pizarro
(Alejandro Repullés) sets out into the jungle with a small army but is soon
bogged down. Instead of continuing he sends out a smaller force to scout ahead
and bring back information on the land ahead and any sign of El Dorado. This
expedition is led by Ursúa (Ruy Guerra) and they immediately build rafts and
set out on the river.
It is a motley
band, drifting into oblivion. Indian slaves, including a former prince, a black
slave used to scare the Indian, two women who does nothing but wear their fine
and always clean dresses, and a bunch of soldiers including Aguirre (Klaus Kinski),
a mercurial officer. What happens through the remainder of the movie is that
the members of the expedition are taken out, one by one, by the Indians, through
internal strife or the hardship of the travel. Aguirre, obsessed with the price
of taking El Dorado, gets crazier and crazier and coup the expedition and they
find… absolutely nothing.
The theme
here is white man’s greed. The conquistadors are simple thieves, highwaymen possessed
by greed. Their senseless pursuit for the elusive price leads to nothing but
destruction and oblivion, but with substantial collateral damage. There is a
complete insensitivity to the land they are travelling through and the people
living there. They are blind to the natural wealth while their eyes are fixed
on a price which is just an illusion.
It is
interesting to watch this movie in 2020 and notice how nothing has really
changed. The themes are still valid and the people on the rafts could as well
be us as the world of 72 or the conquistadors in the sixteenth century.
I think
those are the eyes to watch this movie with: as an allegory. On its own it is a
frustrating movie to watch. Practically everybody of any importance to the
story are insufferable and there is nothing but destruction, defeat and madness
in the course of the movie. You learn early on to despise the characters and
there is some satisfaction in watching them succumb to their greed and
ultimately impotence, but it is odd to watch a movie where you cannot wait to
see the characters meet their respective ends.
Still it is
also a beautiful movie. Made on a shoestring budget there are amazing pictures
of the rainforest a plenty and even the demise of the expedition is filmed in
glorious color. There is some symbolism in the dirty, ugly look of the soldiers,
the tidiness of the Indians and the spotless cleanliness of the women, which is
captured very well by the camera.
It is not a
movie I enjoyed as much as I found it interesting. It is not an adventure and
it is not exciting, but as an allegory it is spot on.
I think I liked it more than you but agree there's not much of a story and what there is is just depressing. But the images are so sublime. Love the music too.
ReplyDeleteThe imagery is stunning and it is telling that none of the Spaniards recognize the inherent value of the land they are passing through. They can only think of the gold the believe awaits them somewhere out there in the jungle.
ReplyDelete