• Fifth and final collaboration between Herzog and Kinski
  • My first time catching it and I’m a little pissed it took me this long- it’s a fascinating film and although it’s not in the realm of Aguirre or Fitzcarraldo in terms of artistic achievement it is certainly a stylistic and narrative match with those two prior masterpieces: it’s odd, surreal, a folklore epic, a meditation on fate, primal violence, ominous (that music is great), a meditation on immortality, features man vs nature and found (both natural and man-made) set pieces
  • Famous picture taken onset of Kinski attacking Herzog with the African extras behind them—features in doc My Best Fiend
  • Odd opening prologue with a guy playing a violin—and then a long written folklore passage- starts in on a great 360 shot close up of Kinski and then a 360 panoramic of the vast desert mountain landscape
  • Ruins, a massive castle—the extras (and there are hundreds) are almost like a swarm that makes its own set piece
  • Lots of Kinski shouting, one random guy intensely staring at the camera and hundreds of topless women fighting
  • Self-loathing meditation— statement on colonization and civilization
  • It’s unintentional comedy but Kinski writing around in the tide is hilarious and then a random man with one leg comes along
  • Extras- non-professionals
  • Kinski’s character attempts (and accomplishes) an impossible feat just like Fitzcarraldo
  • The massive amount of crabs made me think of the rats in their prior collaboration Nosferatu
  • Great location shots in Ghana, Colombia and Brazil
  • He’s a documentary filmmaker as well and you can see that here- Herzog is in awe of the extras- he lingers on wide long shots of them for long periods of time—
  • Recommend /HR border. Flawed but fascinating auteur cinema