Smokescreen: Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Aguirre, the Wrath of God - 1972 - Werner Herzog

Aguirre, the Wrath of God shows Herzog's mutual affection and abhorrence for Nature, how it remains ambivalent to human desire and cruel to our often maniacal ambitions, and yet how we continue to think, through our own deluded perspective, that we can somehow conquer it.

In the mid-16th century, after annihilating the Incan empire, Gonzalo Pizarro (Allejandro Repulles) leads his army of conquistadors over the Andes into the heart of the most savage environment on earth in search of the fabled City of Gold, El Dorado. As the soldier’s battle starvation, Indians, the forces of nature, and each other, Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), ''The Wrath of God,'' is consumed with visions of conquering all of South America and revolts, leading his own army down a treacherous river on a doomed quest into oblivion. Featuring a seething, controlled performance…