The Wrath of the Jungle

Popol Vuh - Aguirre I

Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (The Wrath of God), took a couple viewings before its quality truly became clear. It's director, Werner Herzog, comes from a different type of film making, with a different set of priorities and values. I don't really know enough about cinema to say that it is a particularly avant-garde piece of film, but I think it's safe to say that it definitely more of an "art house" movie. This is not to say that it's just a bunch of actors sitting around drinking coffee and discussing their love lives, or whatever stereotype of an art house film you happen to have in your heads. No, when watching these actors careening down some river in the middle of the Amazon rain forest on crudely built raft of logs, what you actually get is a sense of physical location and danger of place like no other movie I have seen. Perhaps it has something to do with knowing the back story, knowing the movie was filmed with a core crew of only eight, plus actors, in 1971, in the Peruvian jungle, but the palpable sense of isolation is pervasive throughout the film. Purporting to tell the tale of band of Spanish explorers in the 1500s searching for the mythical golden city of El Dorado, Aguirre creates the feeling of being far, far away from civilization, surrounded by an immense and impenetrable jungle--a feeling one imagines actual Spanish explorers must have felt quite strongly during their own adventures.

Interestingly, I just caught part of Apocalypse Now on TV and was struck by how much less present the jungle felt in that movie, even though both films were shot on location, in Peru and the Philippines respectively, and both films deal with similar themes of the descent of humanity as it's faced with nature's implacable disregard. Somehow, in Aguirre, the jungle is just there as a force, throughout the film, making Klaus Kinski's deterioration in to madness as the titular Don Lope de Aguirre seem both appropriate and terrifying.



But why did this movie not sit well with me right away? Well as I said, this is not a Hollywood movie, it's techniques and goals are distinctly different, and even though I could see these things clearly, I think it took me a while to settle in to them and feel comfortable. A convenient analogy is with the soundtrack itself, by Popol Vuh, a much respected Krautrock band from the time, sitting somewhere between Tangerine Dream, Can, and Ash Ra Temple (see above track for an example). It's really interesting to me that a guy like Herzog would find himself associated with the krautrock scene (apparently he actually played soccer with Vuh's Florian Fricke!), as both seem to be working within a strange seam in between pop and the avant-garde. Krautrock takes some of the melodic flourishes of pop music, specifically the North American and British rock of the 60's that preceded it, but adds in to them a willingness to experiment, to deal with expanded palates of sound. Herzog similarly expands upon traditional narative techniques, spending long periods studying the jungle and the river with his camera, adding depth and atmospher to the work, while at the same time requiring a slightly different way of watching a movie, as compared to a more standard hollywood production.

Compared to my taste in music, my taste in movies is quite catholic, though I've been trying to work against this recently. For as much as the Beatles and Francis Ford Coppola are responsible for great works of art, it seems the margins are often the most fruitful sources of interesting works. So my hopes are that my slow appreciation of Aguirre is just the beginning of my expansion beyond "pop" film. Because hey, I don't already spend enough time on weird obscure music...


Also, last reason to love Aguirre: monkeys!