Aguirre, the Wrath of God

In the mid-1500s, a large Spanish expedition searching for the mythical lost city of El Dorado detached an advance party to explore a tributary of the Amazon River; they never returned. Herzog has extrapolated this obscure historical incident into Aguirre, the Wrath of God, a spectacularly horrifying chronicle of imperialism gone amok. In Herzog’s version, the conquistadors’ expedition falls into the hands of one Don Lope de Aguirre, a power-driven lunatic who dreams of stealing an entire continent. Klaus Kinski delivers a magnificent performance as Aguirre, creating a funny/scary quintessence of menacing malevolence, part Richard III, part Attila the Hun.