Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Patrick Willems4.5

A bunch of idiots go to South America and pack the wrong clothes. Loved it.

Josh Lewis5.0

A close-proximity, stylized documentary depiction of colonial cruelty and arrogance entering a feverish, bleakly slapstick jungle dreamscape and getting violently swallowed by the earth. Ants "conquering" a hill and calling themselves gods even while they slowly kill each other, starve to death and deliver rousing speeches to literal monkeys. Feels like a pretty clear precursor to the indifference of nature and sensory madness we'd eventually see in things like Sorcerer and Apocalypse Now, and between this and The Great Silence you could have one hell of a double feature of Klaus Kinski as an eerily quiet psychopath who reveals his aspirations of grandeur and unhinged, violent impulses when granted political power. "The earth I walk upon sees me and quakes."

SilentDawn5.0

100/100"That man is a head taller than me. That may change."A towering vision. As grand as the mist-enshrouded mountains and as chaotically mad as a raft overtaken by monkeys; Herzog's film removes any barrier between audience and character, fact and fiction, reality and dreams. By the end, even the ordinary is swirling, collapsing its horrific, surreal depths into a single image of colossal weight. Not one second is detached from Werner Herzog's own journey. Its voyage beyond the expanses of civilization mirror the unyielding ambition of artistry, showcasing the possibilities and dangers of cinema through a stolen camera lens. It's the kind of movie that makes you wonder not only "how'd they do that?" but "why?", and although its existence as a piece of cinematic perfection is enough to validate that claim, nothing terrifies me more than witnessing it all play out in motion, like diving head first into a deranged fever-dream without any warning or preparation. Its pleasures coexist with a prevalent ambiance of savagery, unleashed through the merciless serenity of nature but restrained (somewhat) by the grounded remnants of society still floating around in the collective mind of the expedition. Its religious roots soon turn towards the glowing quality of greed, and Aguirre feverishly reaches for the opportunity with a cackling fever, spouting thought after thought with the same underlying endpoint. When a horse looks at him, it isn't so much an act of acknowledgement as it is a remorseful search for any seam of inhumanity. Aguirre may be monstrous, but he's not a monster, instead exemplifying the hideousness inside all of us that's just waiting to crawl out and soak in its first breath of air like a fresh transaction. The fact that I gave this two fucking stars back in 2014 is an atrocity in and of itself. I need a time machine so I can smack the shit out of younger me. He deserves (deserved?) it.