Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972)

Werner Herzog’s visceral exploration of doomed adventure and savage beauty is one of German cinema’s totemic masterpieces.

From its opening shots of an ant-like column of Spanish conquistadors and their enslaved indigenous porters scrambling perilously down through the clouds on a sheer pass in the Andes, it’s immediately clear that Werner Herzog’s account of the quest for El Dorado will be something extraordinary.

As the pious but ruthlessly ambitious invaders pursue their fantasies of riches and power, they soon fall prey not only to the Amazonian forests, rivers and Indians but to their own ludicrous delusions of recreating European society in an indifferent, wholly alien landscape. Most extreme in this madness is Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), whose megalomaniac scheming proceeds from the mutinous to the murderous. At once a stirring but avowedly unsentimental tale of overweening ambition and a remarkably rich and original variation on the adventure film, Herzog’s masterpiece combines a flair for the epic with moments of incisive miniaturist observation. The images are breathtaking in their beauty, mystery and sense of scale; Kinski’s performance was arguably his best ever; and the sharp insights into human folly – sometimes sorrowful, sometimes darkly witty – typify Herzog at his most caustically effective.

1972 Federal Republic of Germany
Directed by
Werner Herzog
Produced by
Werner Herzog
Written by
Werner Herzog
Featuring
Klaus Kinski, Cecilia Rivera, Ruy Guerra
Running time
95 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for Aguirre, Wrath of God

Critics

Nigel Andrews
UK
Michael Atkinson
USA
Ernest Chan Chi-wa
Hong Kong
Didi Cheeka
Nigeria
Anne Demy-Geroe
Australia
Thomas Doherty
USA
Jean-Philippe Domecq
France
Paul Duane
Ireland
Karoline Eriksson
Sweden
Graham Fuller
UK/USA
Leonardo García Tsao
Mexico
Federico Gironi
Italy
Thomas Groh
Germany
Phil Hoad
UK/France
Juliet Jacques
UK
Matthias Lerf
Switzerland
Alan Mattli
Switzerland
Petar Milat
Croatia
Derek O'Connor
Ireland
Bina Paul Venugopal
India
Marcin Pieńkowski
Poland
Vic Pratt
UK
Wendy Russell
UK
Peeter Sauter
Estonia
Oleksandr Teliuk
Ukraine
Ivan Velisavljević
Serbia

Directors

Lucy Cohen
UK
Romola Garai
UK
Mladen Kovačević
Serbia
Joanna Priestley
USA
Klaus Wyborny
Germany

Articles related to Aguirre, Wrath of God

Load more

Subscribe to BFI Player to access more films like this

Start with a 14-day free trial then only £6.99 a month - cancel any time.

Explore subscription on BFI Player