Sunday, April 13, 2008

Aguirre: The Wrath of God

Werner Herzog has presented, in all its glory, the Amazonian jungle. Oh, and human nature as well.

There is relatively little dialogue; the visuals tell it all. Aguirre is best described as raw narrative: there are no stylistic pretensions and what we have left is an ambitious independent film. Read the Wiki page and you'd find out that how the movie was made is profoundly interesting in itself.

It certainly was a pioneering movie: and any movie after that will undoubtedly draw comparisons (which some critics did with recent films like Malick's "The New World").

Of course, the reason for such is that Aguirre excels. Some might be left bored at the drifting plot, which progresses at a leisurely pace. Either way, when one thinks of what the cast and crew had to go through to film this movie, you come to appreciate it more.

As the story progresses, you get to see how the titular character- Fernando Aguirre - comes from the background and into the foreground. Kinski portrays him as an ambitious madman with no small amount swagger.

The ending is filled with clear irony, and at only this stage some might be convinced of its greatness. But great movie or not, it certainly is innovative. And as a movie that sets out to tell a story, it works- compellingly.

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