Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

TheNabOwnzz In a way quite similar to Scorsese's Taxi Driver, Aguirre, the Wrath of God is primarily about a ride straight into madness. In this case this is due to the obsessive nature of humanity and the indifference one has with other concerns when faced with a promise of riches.It is a colorful, yet eerie and haunting movie because of the eeriness of the soundtrack and the visual deterioration of the expedition ( aswell as the unseen natives picking them off one by one ) as the journey progresses. There is a constant suspenseful silent feel around the film which seems like anything could happen at any moment. In the end it is obviously about Klaus Kinski's character and his greedy psychopathic madness which causes him to keep going on a never ending quest for El Dorado, a mythical illusion symbolizing the emptiness of man's obsessive compulsion.Klaus Kinski is, ofcourse, excellent as the crazed 'Don' Aguirre. His facial acting screams out the word 'madness' ( Quite possibly so convincing because Kinski himself has been described as a madman in real life. ) and his path strays further and further from humanity as the film progresses, eventually even showing indifference to his daughter. Unfortunately none of the other characters are quite as fascinating as Kinski, which makes the film in turn revolve more around him, but he carries it with such conviction that this does not lesser the film's quality by that much. There is little dialogue, and there is a lot of silence throughout the movie, emphasizing the inner dilemma of the question whether 'El Dorado' is even real.The movie's on location shooting results in beautiful shots all the way through. The first one is obviously the greatest one. In the first shot of the film, we see a staggering view of the entire expedition making its way down the mountain, symbolizing how little we are in quest for riches beyond our belief. As a combination of movement and cinematography, the opening scene also has to be one of the greatest and most beautiful openings to a film ever made. One of the slightly lesser qualities of the camera work seems to be Herzog's tendency to film with a moving camera on things like the rafts or at the indian village causing it to become quite bouncy and difficult to see what's going on. This was probably implemented to improve the audience's immersion, but still widescreen shots still seem like the better way to go.It is in the end not about a quest for gold, but a study on how greed affects the obsessive nature of man and changes a man for the worst. This obsession causes man to develop illusions of themselves to neglect any kind of argument that it cannot be real, and this is displayed perfectly in the final stages of the film. With a masterful Kinski performance, excellent on location cinematography ( except for lesser handheld shots ), a great psychology on greed and obsession and a great moral dilemma ( Ursua being the voice of reason, and Aguirre madness ) it is a great film.

framptonhollis Hopeless, hellish, horrifying, and humorous, 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' is indefinitely the most iconic of Herzog's narrative films. Shot under the most grueling and uncomfortable conditions imaginable, based loosely upon historical fact, and centering on a mad, obsessive, and tragic anti-hero's excursion into the most deranged depths of his already-deranged-pretty-much-by-default psyche, 'Aguirre' is not the most pleasant and cheerful film ever made, but damn is it stunning. The locations and cinematography are eye poppingly gorgeous and colorful and yet fit the film's desperate and bleak tone w/seamless perfection. The lead performance by the chaotic and demented Klaus Kinski is legendarily haunting and convincing (one can easily draw parallels between the real life Kinski and the character he so perfectly portrays in this film). Tonally, the film balances itself brilliantly out w/disturbing drama, subtly absurd pitch black humor, and intentionally miserable, repetitive "adventure". Everything about the film is dark and grueling, there is no hope, there is only a passionately maniacal weirdo attempting to take control of an already to-likely-be-botched expedition and sadly succeeding. The deluded simultaneous pro/antagonist is portrayed w/an almost brilliant lack of judgement through Herzog's shaking, saddening lens, we are just kind of forced to sit there and view his destruction of all opposition along w/the destruction of all possible success, possible success that was already far-reaching and improbable anyway. Yes, it is a gloomy, dreary, weary, eerie, bleak, dark, disturbing, sad, weird, violent, miserable, surreal, and uniquely funny masterpiece unlike almost any other. While certainly not perfect, and oft-less-than-entertaining, 'Aguirre' is doubtlessly one of the most fascinating, fantastic, and, indeed, GREAT movies of all time.

Tweetienator Director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski did some fantastic and outstanding works together, besides Aquirre, the Wrath of God I would name Fitzcarraldo (1982), Cobra Verde (1987) and Nosferatu (1979).In Aquirre Kinski plays the ruthless and insane and passion driven Don Lope de Aguirre, leading a Spanish expedition of Conquistadors to find the city of El Dorado and plunder its riches for the Spanish crown and for himself. What most of them find is an endless jungle, heat, fever and other plagues, hostile natives and madness and finally death. Kinski is one of the few, rare actors who are able to play such intense characters like Aquirre without ridiculing them in on or the other way. And Werner Herzog is a daring director with vision and a look and care for details. Alone the tensions and group dynamics between the Conquistadors are superb choreographed.If you want outstanding movies for your dish, The Wrath of God and the other mentioned movies are made for you: what you get are intense acting, fabulous and unique story(telling) and a great production with (as far as I can tell) great care for historical accuracy.

avik-basu1889 Werner Herzog's 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' is not a film that can be merely watched, it has to be experienced. While watching the film, I truly thought that Herzog didn't just convey a story, he put a bit of his heart and soul on screen. The film stars Herzog's frequent collaborator, the eccentric and volatile Klaus Kinski who plays the titular role of Aguirre. Although the story is loosely based on real events, the script is pretty much a fictional account of the travels of a Spanish soldier named Lope de Aguirre who leads a group of conquistadores and their Indian slaves down the Amazon river in South America to find El Dorado, the city of gold.The film commences with a prolonged single shot of the line of conquistadores with the Indian slaves going down a mountain and the shot is slightly obscured by the mist. The camera stays stationary while it captures the scene. It is a shot that is immensely beautiful in its surrealism while also being thematically transcendental. The men look like ants walking in a straight line. They have huge ambitions of conquering lands and becoming rich, but they are nothing but tiny ants in comparison to the vastness of the mountain and the surrounding elements of nature. Popol Vuh's haunting music lends a spiritual undertone to the entire film.I believe this film is about man's obsession with power, fame and superiority and how God in the form of nature can be completely indifferent to these obsessions and ambitions. I think the principle of accepting nature as God like it is done in some religions like Hinduism is the basis of interpreting the meaning of the film. When the conquistadores led by Aguirre try to ransack nature, nature hits back. All the deaths happen off- screen. We are never shown anyone firing the arrows at the conquistadores. We just see the arrows flying towards them, almost creating the impression nature is fighting back and thwarting the greedy conquerors. This aspect of man's mad obsession falling prey to the nature's forces was clearly an inspiration for Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now'. Aguirre is the manifestation of the greed and lust for power that humanity can fall prey to internally. His obsession spreads through the others in the mission and anyone who questions Aguirre gets dealt with mercilessly. Considering that this film was the creation of a German filmmaker, I found it very difficult to not think about Hitler and Nazi Germany. Aguirre shares Hitler's colonial obsession with annexing other countries and conquering nations. We also get another similarity between Hitler and Aguirre in their desire to create a pure dynasty. The film's production and shooting processes have become infamous due to all the troubles that Herzog had to face in the form of lack of money, highly treacherous filming locations and the anger of the extremely volatile Klaus Kinski. But he kept on persisting and his obsession in making the film almost mirrors Aguirre's unflinching obsession to find 'El Dorado'. There are many signature shots of Herzog's surrealist film language like the shot of a ship hanging at the top of a tree, a scene where Aguirre holds a newborn sloth and is appreciating its beauty and telling his daughter how naive it is and how it has remained asleep for the major portion of its life, but we know that Herzog clearly wants to say that it is the humans who are sleeping and naive in trying to assert their superiority over nature. Herzog also critiques religion in the film. There is a clear distinction that Herzog establishes between organised religion and God. His guerilla style of filmmaking actually accentuates and captures the madness in the story instead of serving the purpose of being a gimmick. Apart from Werner Herzog, the other person whose name has to be mentioned is Klaus Kinski. Everyone mentions Anthony Hopkins in 'Silence of the Lambs' when talking about an actor having an immense impact and owning a film with very limited screen time, I think such a discussion should also include Kinski's portrayal of Aguirre. Even with limited screen time Kinski has an undeniably chilling impact. Every gesture and every mannerism of his is expressive. His character's madness and obsession gets expressed through his postures and his eyes. This is one of those legendary screen performances that not only ornaments the film, but also ends up elevating it.To end this review I will analyse the last shot of the film. The final images will stick with me forever due to the beauty and the depth of what's on screen. There are corpses lying everywhere on the raft. Aguirre is the sole figure still standing. He holds his dying daughter. We see Aguirre's hand soaked in his daughter's blood which figuratively conveys that her death is on his hands and in the bigger picture it establishes the perils of the coming generations due to the greed fuelled obsessions of their ancestors. Now we had earlier seen the soldiers torturing animals, but now a group of numerous monkeys are seen invading the raft, thus signifying nature completing its revenge. Aguirre is still holding on to his deluded obsessions and moving on. This is one of the most beautifully poignant ending to any film I have ever seen.Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a philosophical work of art. It is not for everybody and I can only recommend it to hardcore art-film lovers. But the themes explored in the film are giant-sized. I can't stop thinking about it even after days of watching the film.Aguirre says that he is the 'Wrath of God' and then looks directly at the camera. He thinks he will do whatever he wants and no one can stop him. His naivety prevents him from realising that he is not the 'Wrath of God', he is just a victim of the same.