Not the kind of madness found in the Madness of King George or in the midst of the crazed ones in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Not the politically maniacal, bug eyed patriot sort of mad found in Doctor Strangelove. Not hell in a handbasket kind of crazy, either, in the way that some war films can be, although I must admit anything to do with the Holocaust and concentration camps is about as sad crazy as it gets.
No, it more the mad, sad, outrageousness of people and the insensible things that they do that're chronicled so well in documentaries like Koyaanisqatsi and it's successors. It's more the wild madness of hubris discarded as captured in Mosquito Coast, the type of glorious homocidal madness that propelled Gloria Swanson down the staircase in Sunset Blvd, the sort of wickedly brazen kind of madness that drove that wee riverine warship up the Nung River to Colonel Kurtz's compound. Aguirre captures a poetic madness of the grandest sort and is best seen captured in the final frame of Werner Herzog's masterpiece, as the conquistidor played by Klaus Kinski floats down river on a raft filled with corpses and monkeys. That final take, with Aguirre stumbling about his sodden funeral barge, is the cinematic moment that truly defines a beautiful, waay out there, totally cuckoo kind of mad.
We are and need to be sensitive about those kinds of things these days. There are groups and organizations and pharmaceutical houses out there that would take umbrage to the fact that I am even using the word crazy in a sentence. I mean, look at how much trouble using the word retarded caused the White House chief of staff? I have nothing against crazy people. I look at Van Gogh and am very thankful for folks who are and were a bit off their rockers. It's just when they are leading us, when we are far, far from home that having a Mad Hatter at the helm of the good ship Nevermore bothers me a bit.
I have to admit that I put off watching Aguirre for years because of Klaus Kinski's bio, because of the tell all book, My Favoite Fiend, chronicling the fractious, violent relationship between Kinski and Herzog. I put off watching it because it was one of those films I championed during my somewhat snotty art house phase, back in those days when nothing that came out of Hollywood, new or old, was worth a damn. I put it off, too, because I didn't want to be disappointed. I had memories of this monumental film tucked in one of the back corridors of my brain and I didn't want to let it out for fresh air. I wanted that dusty image to be preserved deep in my psyche, I wanted it to sit tight and hang out with all the rest of my self righteous, full of myself college memories. It was a good fit back then, the story of Spanish conquistidors doing their best to conquer wild jungle, filmed by a German director, the main actors speaking German instead of Spanish. The strangeness fed me and I trumpeted the weirdness of it all to all my equally nerdy pals.
Aguirre isn't for everybody, but then again, a film with impact of a blunderbus slug that isn't driven by an insipid plot, drippy dialogue and CGI effects is not everybody's cup of tea, either. Hell, I must admit that there are days when "insipid" and "drippy" and loud sonic "BOOM!"'s are just what the doctor ordered. Somedays I put on something strange and foriegn and avant garde just because I want to go to sleep. But Aguirre isn't one of those kinds of films. You get caught up in the film right away, if you are the breathing type, if you are the kind of person who's blood is circulating properly. From the moment you see that shot of those hapless Indians, those gold crazed conquistidors carrying cannon and chickens and bulky sedan chairs down the slopes of the Andes you know you're hooked. From that moment on you know that you are embarking on a trip that qualifies as one of those Thank God It Isn't Me kind of tales.
Kinski. He has the kind of face that is repellent to a twenty some year old guy hung up on movie star looks. That face is too waay out there, too much, too filled with expression and awe and a sort of unearthly glow that says saint or zealot or madman, look out. The more I watch him play Aguirre, the more I truly appreciate that there was no other man born to play the role. It's the eyes, his sneer, the rubbery exoticness of his face that says "stay away, come, do whatever you please but know that the ship is in my hands now and that your days are numbered".
I watched Aguirre the other night and knew from the beginning that Man was never in charge, that nature and the jungle would prevail, that everything we do to poison the earth and take away it's power is for naught. To struggle against it is madness, to think we are masters of our fate is madness. Watch Aguirre and be thankful for your time and place in history, but at the same time resign yourself to knowing that like the crew aboard that rotten raft sailing down a tributary of the Amazon, you are not in charge, not now, not ever. We are lost, hapless souls on a journey, at the mercy of fever dreams, green monkeys and fashionably long arrows.
Action!
Movie review: Aguirre, Wrath of God:
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