Review – Aguirre, The Wrath of God

Werner Herzog and jungles just don’t mix. Here he serves up the grim tale of an offshoot of Pizarro’s expedition. Their original assignment was to head down river (at least that was a change in direction from the usual Heart of Darkness stuff) and find help for the army of conquistadors. But after the crew runs into trouble, a sub-commander named Aguirre takes over. Given that the character is played by old Herzog standby Klaus Kinski, it almost goes without saying that our anti-hero starts out crazy bad and just gets worse as the plot progresses. It also almost goes without saying that before the show ends we’re treated to a lot of long, tedious soul-searching punctuated by random acts of savagery. I used to have a higher tolerance for this stuff than I do now. There are some beautiful shots toward the beginning, but ultimately they don’t justify the whole depressing thing. See if desperate