Werner Herzog Box Set 1

Fitzcarraldo

A mesmerizing and unforgettable film. 3 years in the making and shot all over again when the first cast left!

Cinematography is quite stunning.

Remember the days before CGI and Health & Safety!!??

Fantastic box set. Aguirre which is mesmerising from the start and Fitzcarraldo which is bewildering, justify viewing alone. There is something wistful and dreamy about the way Herzog shoots these films and this is contrasted by the way Klinski dominates the screen. Both were clearly enraptured with South America and the otherworldliness that exists there.

Fitzcarraldo is better than the other two. Herzog's obsession with extreme behaviour is easy to see in these three famous films.

Whilst viewing Aguirre, Wrath of God the first thing that springs to mind is how challenging it must have been for the director, Werner Herzog and his cast and crew to have made the film entirely on location in the jungles of Peru. The central performances , especially Aguirre played by Klaus Kinski , are excellent. However the film is a little slow and uninvolving in places and I was disappointed that the viewer is told at the beginning of the film that the expedition was disastrous.

If you enjoyed Aguirre, Wrath of God I recommend also seeing Fitzcarraldo – another collaboration between Herzog & Kinski set in the jungles of South America. In my opinion that is an even better film.

Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972): Recommended to me by the excellent Anne Billson, Aguirre follows a group of 16 century conquistadors in their fruitless search for the mythical city of gold, El Dorado. Shot on location in the Peruvian rainforest, the film concerns the destructive power of greed and is also an examination of the frailty of the human psyche. Starring the famously unhinged Klaus Kinski (who looks like a the b*stard child of David Lee Roth and Gollum), both cast and crew endured an arduous five week shoot which involved constant arguments between Director Herzog and Kinski, mountainous jungle terrain and really dangerous rapids. The obvious father to Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, Aguirre is largely unscripted and at times seems as aimless as the original plan to find El Dorado was. However, for all the arthouse pretentions, it’s a sprawling and sumptuous beast of a movie. In the fantastic final scene where the starving (and by now quite bonkers) Lope de Aguirre (Kinski) has resorted to conversing with monkeys ‘I am the wrath of God and I will marry my own daughter’ you do begin to wonder if Herzog has managed to engineer a situation where life has begun to imitate art. There is also a rather marvellous soundtrack by German Krautrock band Popol Vuh if any of you needed convincing…

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