The first film I watched was Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes, with Klaus Kinski playing the main character, Don Lope de Aguirre. Interestingly, Herzog filmed using one, stolen camera on location in the Peruvian rainforest, and so it's essentially a very budget (but not bad) film, telling the fictionalised story of Conquistador Don Lope de Aguirre.
The plot is pretty simple and dare I say it, boring. Basically, the principle, spanish characters float down the Amazon on makeshift rafts dreaming of self-rule and wealth beyond wealth heading for a make-believe city of immense riches, El Dorado. Slowly, the band of arrogant would-be-conquerors descends into hunger and mutiny (a bit like in Lord of the Flies), and you can guess the rest. The trip is doomed from the start, but Aguirre is SO convinced that El Dorado exists, nothing can change his mind. The one disconcerting aspect of their journey, is the 'invisible' enemy, i.e the Amazonian natives who can fire poison arrows with such precision, and no one can see where the arrow came from.
The acting of Klaus Kinski is very convincing, and you can just imagine being with him on that doomed raft of his. Also, the fragility of the 2 female characters in their mid-16th Century European dress markedly plays out amongst the sweat and rusting iron costuming of the men.
Overall, the film is a classic of the cinema for its vision through adversity of location, leading actor, budget and sheer directorial temerity which makes it seem like a documentary. I can't say I enjoyed the film as such and am dying to see it again, BUT it's worth seeing if you enjoy Werner Herzog, and are interested in what he brings to the table.
The second film I saw, was Herzog's 1974 film,The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser with the main character Kaspar being played by Bruno Schleinstein. The film follows the real story of foundling Kaspar Hauser quite closely, using the text of actual letters found with Hauser, although some aspects are left out. Kaspar was a mysterious teenage boy who appeared in the streets of Nuremberg at the age of 17 in 1828, with limited vocabulary and understanding of the world. He claimed that he’d been imprisoned in a cellar most of his life with nothing but a wooden horse to play with. History has revealed he was probably a fantasist, but his mystery has never been solved, and his story makes for a good film.
The opening scene is of Kaspar in a cellar, his only company is the toy horse, and occasionally a mysterious cloaked man comes in to feed him. Eventually the man decides to take Kaspar outside, to Nuremberg where he is taken in by a military man. Hauser becomes the subject of much curiosity, and is exhibited in a circus before being rescued by Herr Daumer played by Walter Ladengast, who patiently attempts to transform him.
One side to Werner Herzog’s formidable career has always been his interest in congenital misfits – those removed, especially by language, from living inside the norms of society, and Kaspar's story certainly fits this. His scene confounding a visiting logician, by posing a brilliantly intuitive solution to the well-known riddle about a town of liars and one of truth-tellers, is a classic demonstration of crackpot reasoning, as pure a Herzog moment as any you could find. Schleinstein is brilliant, and seems generally puzzled by all which we take for granted in our everyday lives. Surprisingly, Herzog insisted on the casting of a non-professional, a Berlin street musician called Bruno S. This could easily have been a bad decision, but it did pay off.
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