Aguirre, the Wrath of God

 Dominic Mayhall



Aguirre, the Wrath of God


    When you originally mentioned that this movie was about German actors playing Spaniards, I thought that was a brilliant idea. I know that because the director was German, he'd use German actors, but the concept of a movie about conquistadors speaking German sounds like comedy gold. Though, I was able to watch the movie in dubbed English, so I did that. The dub was pretty good for one dubbed in the 70s where some dubbers drank on the job.


    That opening scene and that shot by the mountain side with the misty atmosphere was beautiful. All while a hymn is played lavishly in the background. This type of scenery in movies always impresses me whether it was filmed past or present. Even more so if it was filmed in the past, because to this day I don't know how some of these frames were done using video wizardry. Using that large river must've been hard to navigate around, but I'm glad they used it. It adds a form of peace to the conquistadores' surroundings. I also praise the fact that they had all these different types of animals around them. From chickens, to pigs, to monkeys, to horses, and llamas. Whoever was able to round up all those animals, hats off to them. One more thing I liked, was that smooth edit when Aguirre chopped off that other man's head. And when the man was beheaded while talking, you get to see his chopped off head still say a word while it lies there with a splatter of blood in front of it. Even though that may be gruesome and crude to some. I find that scene execution very impressive.


    I love the raw realism to these new wave documentary type of movies. It's as if you're just another one of the conquistadors watching these situations play out. That aspect of new wave I really like. It makes me wish that movies like this can still be made and appreciated without some big multi-million-dollar budget that these copy and paste Hollywood movies are coming out with these days. I feel the creativity is lacking in the movie industry, because these producers want to play it safe. So, watching something like "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" was refreshing and keeps me optimistic that history will repeat itself and one day these type of cult classic films can be made today with the same recognition.

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