(This review pertains to the limited edition Region 2 UK release from the BFI)
By Paul Risker
As
well as asking the question “Is cinema more important than life?†Francois
Truffaut showed a flair for statement when he declared Werner Herzog to be “The
most important filmmaker alive.â€
If
the BFI have the final word this summer, it will be remembered as the summer of
Herzog, as they align themselves with the German filmmaker and journey headlong
into his cinematic world. This rendezvous starts with a descent into the past with
two distinct forms of horror - the hallucinatory horror of human obsession in
Aguirre, Wrath of God and the genre horror Nosferatu.
Aguirre,
Wrath of God represents an important entry in Herzog's career, and by coupling it
with his 1971 feature documentary Fata Morgana, this release highlights the spatial
thread that runs through his cinema. From the jungle, the desert, Antarctica
and the urban geographical spaces resemble continents in Herzog’s cinema. Therein
the decision to offset Herzog's early foray into the jungle with an early
montage of images of the desert set to songs by Leonard Cohen is a fitting
accompaniment to Aguirre’s obsessive jungle march.
It
is theoretically possible to appreciate select films via the filmmaker’s commentary
on a first viewing, and Aguirre, Wrath of God is one of those films to support
such a theory. Herzog’s commentary intertwines well with the film, and whilst
the film functions as an independent entity - the grown up child who has come
of age and has been sent out into the world; Herzog’s words take you behind the
images to tell you the transparent narrative of the human experience behind the
film.
Whilst
in one sense the films exist separately of their filmmaker, in equal measure an
extension of him. In Aguirre, Wrath of God Herzog’s audacity to confront the inhospitable
jungle as well as the arduous nature of the filmmaking process finds him
mirrored in the tale of obsession and the obsessive nature of Don Lope de
Aguirre (Klaus Kinski).
Herzog’s
primary focus appears to be trained on the experience or sense of feeling the
film offers over the consideration of narrative, by opening himself up to the
environment as a source of inspiration. He allows the jungle to reveal its
nature and to guide him in creating an experience for him, his characters and
us the audience. Aguirre feels authentically gruelling, and lacks the
artificial feel of a performance, merging the physical and psychological
experience of a trek, and despite the improvisational approach, Herzog manages
to create a melodic flow amidst the arduous natural terrain, imbuing it with
graceful beauty despite the descent into an obsessive voyage of death.
Aguirre,
Wrath of God offers a powerful meditation on a theme of insanity - the susceptibility
versus the immunity. Whilst Kinski’s Aguirre floats on the surface in a state
of disquieting peace, his counterparts are inevitably dragged beneath the calm
surface. Kinski’s delivers a pitch perfect performance, both his idle and glaring
stare offset against the awkward physical movements that masterfully merge the
physical abruptness with a shade of a devilish soul.
The
jungle setting affords Herzog the opportunity to take advantage of the space
and setting as a mirror to reflect his characters psychology - the wildness of
their natures, and the labyrinth of obsession that the winding river becomes a
metaphor for. But the fatalities suffered by the native’s offers a reflection
that man is his own undoing, and mother nature is only a backdrop or a
reflection capable of showing us both our Jekyll and Hyde.
Aguirre
sits as the opening chapter in the tumultuous Kinski-Herzog collaboration; the
full story of which was wonderfully told in Herzog’s 1999 documentary My Best Fiend.
This relationship imbues Herzog’s career with a shade of folklore. If Woody
Allen listed reasons to live, then one of the reasons to be grateful for
Aguirre, Wrath of God is Herzog’s infamous threat to shoot Kinski. Whilst
disputes on set are not unheard of, Kinski and Herzog pushed into the realm of
the absurd. Whilst the two men plotted each other’s murder together they created
a series of films that have come to represent one of the great cinematic
collaborations in the history of film. But the distortion of these stories has
imbued them with a sense of myth; where what happened differs to what we think
happened. The stories of threats of physical harm and fleeing native tribes
could be read as filmic parables or cautionary tales for other filmmakers. If
the story of the making of a film can be just as compelling as the narrative
that plays out onscreen, the Kinski-Herzog dance more often than not produced such
a compelling second narrative. What better place to start than with Aguirre,
Wrath of God where this collaboration was born.
Alongside
a fine selection of extras including an old commentary track moderated by
Norman Hill and the montage documentary Fata Morgana, included on this release
are three early shorts that see Herzog experiment with the subjective and
objective perspective of his characters. An entertaining trilogy representing a
young filmmaker cutting his teeth, they present him as a filmmaker fascinated
by human nature, behaviour and personality from the very dawn of his filmmaking
career.
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