Retrospective: Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Patreon)

"That man is a head taller than me. That may change."

Klaus Kinski gives his most reserved performance in Aguirre: The Wrath of God. He's not quite the screaming madman he later plays in Fitzcarraldo; in Aguirre, he's a more Machiavellian figure, slowly conniving his way through the ranks. If anything, he's playing a dark version of Werner Herzog himself — a fatalistic crackpot hellbent on conquests of the useless.

Herzog movies are often documentaries of their own production. The man had to haul a steamship over a hill to make Fitzcarraldo, a story of a man hauling a steamship over a hill. Similarly, Aguirre documents a futile quest through the Amazon basin, a journey to find El Dorado. The film, of course, is aware El Dorado does not exist. There's no end in sight for Aguirre and company; no reward to be obtained. It's stupid colonial adventurism; genocide committed in pursuit of an unobtainable goal.

Herzog is obsessed with non-Great Men of History, figures who failed at great tasks — Aguirre, Timothy Treadwell, Hannibal. Sometimes his focus on these figures — who are usually monstrous — eclipses any empathy with the people they conquer. The Indians in Aguirre are unabashedly victims, but they're not sketched out beyond that.

In a way, this is one of Aguirre's strength. It's a guide to the colonial mind — one of the most feverish and stupid imaginable. Aguirre tries to rival Cortes with an army of dozens. There's something appealing about a genocidal maniac that stupid. This is Herzog and Kinski at their best — knowingly, intelligently stupid.