This is a movie about a half-crazed paranoid egomaniac with terrible hair who’s sexually obsessed with his daughter, who lets his hubris lead him to an escalating series of disasters until he’s fully-crazed, who finally ends up alone on a dilapidated raft with no provisions, no map, and no plan, proclaiming his omnipotent power to a bunch of monkeys.
So naturally I thought of Donald Trump. I suppose if he ends up alone on whatever version of the raft full of uncaring monkeys is in his future, we’ll be lucky.
Forget Idiocracy (please), forget 1984. Aguirre, the Wrath of God is the defining prophetic text of the Trump Era.
Aguirre is a man who barely knows what he’s doing in an environment totally alien to him. He is thrust into power after the apparatus around him destroys itself. He succeeds, initially, not because he is especially skilled or experienced, but because he is willing to escalate matters further than anyone else. The rest of this doomed expedition into the Amazon jungle thinks they’re still in Spain, operating according to Spain’s rules. They didn’t realize that they’ve all demonstrated their own insanity just by being there. Even as the film ends, the survivors (none of whom make it to the final frame) can barely comprehend what they see around them. The landscape, and Aguirre, totally defeat all of them. They weren’t ready for any of it.
This is a movie about the futility of conquest, about the absurdity of trying to possess and hold something you can’t comprehend. There was no lost City of El Dorado, or anything like it. There was nothing waiting in the jungle but animals and people, people who might be outmatched by a large Spanish army but would not take conquest quietly or kindly. The men of the expedition weren’t ready, for any of it.
This is a movie about the ways mad men are enabled by those around them: by their religions, by their loving families, by the followers who refuse to see the madness until it’s turned on them. It’s a movie about the ways that women and servants and oppressed, colonized people are often the first to see the madness, and the last to be listened to.
Was Klaus Kinski a good actor? It’s hard for me to tell. He was exactly the kind of actor Werner Herzog needed for this role, and many others. He has a frightening intensity, though when I watch this film I can never quite believe that he wasn’t pegged as Too Crazy to bring along before the expedition to El Dorado even began. I don’t think it’s knowing everything we know about Kinski, about his rages, about how his on-set behavior was so bad that Herzog turned down assassination offers. He just has that look in his eye.
This is a brilliant film. It’s not one I have a great time watching, especially lately. I kept having to take breaks to go calm my head, which I’m sure is a sign of success. I couldn’t stop thinking about Trump, and how badly things can still go.
Would I recommend?
I would, but maybe not until he’s out of office. If we make it that long.
Clips
Watch the end of the film here. It’s beautiful, and bleak: