Line #26 Film/AguirreTheWrathOfGod


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aguirre.jpg]]
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3	->''"I am the wrath of God. The earth I pass will see me and tremble."''
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5	''Aguirre, the Wrath of God'' (''Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes'') is one of Creator/WernerHerzog's first films, released in 1972. It is VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory, that of UsefulNotes/LopeDeAguirre, a 16th-century Spanish conqueror that explored the jungles of UsefulNotes/SouthAmerica. At the start of the film, a large expedition under UsefulNotes/FranciscoPizarro's brother Gonzalo sends ahead a scouting party, consisting of Don Pedro de Ursúa, Don Lope de Aguirre (Creator/KlausKinski) and others. Of course, [[RiverOfInsanity being alone in the jungle starts driving the people mad]], and Aguirre above all.
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7	The film kickstarted Herzog's career and was the first of several collaborations with Kinski. [[TroubledProduction The filming was said to be a nightmare]]. This is the film that gave rise to the legend of Herzog directing Kinski at gunpoint when the actor refused to follow his commands. Herzog insists that the story is apocryphal, and that he "merely" threatened to shoot both Kinski and himself should the actor choose to quit the film.
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9	Creator/RogerEbert regularly listed the film on his top ten movies of all time.
10	----
11	!! ''Aguirre, the Wrath of God'' contains examples of:
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13	* AdiposeRex: Fat, gluttonous and lazy Guzmán is cynically made leader of the expedition and Emperor of El Dorado. It comes to a head when, in the middle of a meal, he is distracted by a jumpy horse (which they proceed to kick out), and some of the men use the opportunity to eat the remains of his feast.
14	-->'''Lope de Aguirre:''' Have you seen any solid ground that would support your weight?
15	* AndeanMusic: One of the Inca natives accompanying the expedition has a ''siku'' pan flute and [[https://youtu.be/UJC91C6KvYY plays it at times]], serving as SourceMusic. The melody is part of the film's soundtrack by the band Popol Vuh also.
16	* AnnoyingArrows: A variation -- by the end, the men are simply too exhausted and delirious to feel pain when they're hit by arrows.
17	-->'''Okello:''' That is no ship. That is no forest. ''[thunk]'' That is no arrow.
18	* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler:Really in this case, everyone will die. By the end of the movie the only characters that aren't explicitly dead are Aguirre, Inés, and Ursúa's right hand man. The latter two's fate are more ambiguous, but with both them alone in the jungle, it's doubtful they will survive. Likewise Aguirre is last seen alone on the expedition's raft, surrounded by the corpses of his loyalists after a series of native attacks. The real-life Aguirre was ultimately shot and dismembered by the Spanish for his rebellion, though the odds on this Aguirre even getting that far appear exceedingly slim.]]
19	* ApocalypticLog: The journal of Gaspar de Carvajal, the supposed basis of the movie.[[note]]The real Carvajal ''did'' write [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspar_de_Carvajal#The_Relaci.C3.B3n_and_Carvajal.27s_mark_on_history an account]] of his voyage on the Amazonas, but it's not an apocalyptic log in real life and the quotations are fictional.[[/note]]
20	* ArtisticLicenseHistory:
21	** The film's plot starts out as a fictional version of the expedition of UsefulNotes/FranciscoDeOrellana, with Aguirre in Orellana's place, before diverging into a fictional ending where [[spoiler:they are all implied to die on the Amazonas river.]] Orellana himself was mentioned in the original script as the leader of a previous expedition, and was supposed to be the owner of the ship perched atop the trees, but none of it appears in the final film.
22	** In real life, the name of Aguirre's daughter was Elvira, not Flores. No mention is made in the film that both she and Inés were mestizas, which should have been brought up in their talk with Baltasar (given that they are both portrayed by Mexican actresses, this may be still implicit in the film, though).
23	** The real Aguirre was physically the exact opposite to Klaus Kinski, being short and black-haired. His intentions to marry his own daughter are also entirely fictional, that we know at least.
24	** In real life, Father Gaspar de Carvajal was not the imperialist slimeball shown in the film, but a deeply social churchman who even became a defender of the indigenous' rights. He was also a member of the Orellana expedition, not the Aguirre one.
25	** The expeditioners in the film wear clothing more fitting for Northern Europe than the Amazonian jungle, including big leather kneeboots and poofy sleeves. Similarly, the women are dressed in impractical, fancy court dresses that would have been very unlikely to find in female expeditioners at the time.
26	** In the film, the narration refers to their Inca auxiliars as slaves, with some of them being randomly chained like hostages and fulfilling no apparent job in the expedition. By this point of real life, however, indigenous slavery was fully outlawed in the Spanish Empire,[[note]]It was sporadically resurrected for war captives in very nasty frontiers, though[[/note]] and even before, it used to be allowed only as a punishment for revolting against the crown or whenever the indigenous themselves handed their own slaves as a tribute, none of which is explicitly the case here.
27	** Baltasar claims to be a former high prince of the Inca whose people were enslaved by the Spaniards without provocation, an event that would have not been feasable at any point of the conquest of America. His actor even looks too young for the character to have reigned back when a possible rebellion would have made them eligible to slavery. Even if it was the case, his own royal status would have spared him that fate (he might have been imprisoned and/or executed if he was a ringleader, but never enslaved).
28	** Speaking of Baltasar, there is no reason why an Inca nobleman should know the languages of uncontacted jungle tribes in real life.
29	** The point about Amerindians being weirded out by black people was TruthInTelevision, so much that, in a curious incident after the conquest, some black slaves acquired by indigenous aristocrats died when their bewildered owners boiled them alive in an attempt to make them white. However, there is no record that the Pizarros ever attempted to weaponize this in the Amazonas as shown in the film. Had they wanted, they would have likely employed black conquistadors, as they had no shortage of those (Francisco Pizarro himself had two conquistadores mulattos in his entourage, Juan García and Miguel Ruiz), instead of forceful slaves.
30	** Aguirre mentions that UsefulNotes/HernanCortez was given the order to return in midst of his way to Mexico, only that he chose to defy it and keep on. In real life, Cortés actually received the order back when his fleet was still in port. This deviation might be chalked up in-universe to Aguirre not knowing the exact details or, given that he is using it as a motivational example, tweaking it deliberately in order to liken it to their own situation.
31	** Aguirre also fantasizes at one point with invading Mexico and conquer it from Cortés' hands. In reality, by the point the film is set, Cortés had been dead for thirteen years (not to mention he had ceased being governor of New Spain seventeen years before his death), and Mexico was governed by Viceroy Luis de Velasco. Again, Aguirre might be just losing touch with reality here, if he ever had it to begin with.
32	* AsideGlance: When making his first declaration that he is "the Wrath of God", Aguirre gazes directly into the camera for a few very unsettling moments.
33	* AxCrazy: Aguirre is certifiably mad, and comes to killing some people of the expedition by himself in his madness.
34	* BadassBoast:
35	--> '''Lope de Aguirre:''' I am the great traitor. There must be no other. Anyone who even thinks of deserting this mission will be hacked into [[LudicrousPrecision 198 pieces]]. Those pieces will be trampled until what is left can be used only to paint walls. Whoever takes one grain of corn or one drop of water more than his ration will be locked up for 155 years. If I, Aguirre, want the birds to drop dead from the trees... then the birds will drop dead from the trees. [[BlasphemousBoast I am the wrath of God]]. The earth I pass will see me and tremble. But whoever follows me and the river will win untold riches.
36	* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Unlike the male characters, Inés de Atienza and Florés de Aguirre remain perfectly groomed throughout the film, even though they are in the middle of a hostile jungle.
37	* BewareTheQuietOnes: Aguirre is surprisingly quiet and restrained -- for a cruel, deluded madman anyhow. "Quiet menace" describes him well. Herzog had to go to great lengths to force Kinski to deliver this kind of performance.
38	* BigBad: Don Lope de Aguirre's {{ambition\|IsEvil}} is what ruins the expedition.
39	* BlackComedy: Though reviewers rarely comment on it, the movie actually contains a streak of black comedy that is sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle.
40	* BloodFromTheMouth: Carvajal after taking an arrow to the guts.
41	* BlowGun: The natives keep sniping at the travelers on the raft with these.
42	* TheBlindLeadingTheBlind: Nobody has a clue where they are going, but they push on like crazy.
43	* BoldExplorer: The film takes this trope to the point of insanity, as Lope de Aguirre explores South America in search of a City of Gold, ignoring death and deprivation among his men along the way.
44	* BolivianArmyEnding: [[spoiler:The film ends with Aguirre as leader of an 'empire' of monkeys picking apart his corpse-strewn raft after native arrow barrages have killed everyone else on board. The best that can be said is that he's no less visibly physically unhealthy than he was at any other point in the film, even if his mind is clearly all the way gone.]]
45	* BoobyTrap: Early in the film, a Spaniard exploring the jungle walks into a sling which draws him up into a tree by some unseen contraption. Moments later we see blood dripping from above, revealing that the man has met his doom, although we (perhaps fortuntely) do not see how.
46	* BurningTheShips: After promoting Don Fernando de Guzmán to "Emperor of El Dorado", Aguirre makes Carvajal write a letter to King UsefulNotes/PhilipII of Spain which declares not only their defection from Spain, but also the "overthrow" of the [[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic House of Habsburg]] and the "dethronement" of Philip. The letter is kept by Aguirre, who in this way makes sure that Guzmán and the rest cannot bail out of their rebellion, as the letter is incriminating proof of their complicity.
47	* CampingACrapper: Guzmán is murdered during a visit to the toilet.
48	* CannibalTribe: "Meat is passing by!"
49	* CaptainsLog: The journal of Gaspar de Carvajal. As it turns out, Carvajal is a blatant case of an UnreliableNarrator, which however does not stop him from narrating. Which is actually [[BlackComedy kind of funny.]]
50	* CassandraTruth: Inés warns Ursúa of Aguirre's rebellious scheme, and Aguirre of what she calls "God's punishment". Both warnings are unheeded.
51	* CeilingCorpse: Early on, a troop of Spaniards are exploring the jungle when the last of them catches his foot in a sling and is silently drawn up into a tree. Moments later, another Spaniard turns around to look for his comrade. Looking around confusedly, he suddenly sees blood dripping from above on nearby leaves. He looks up, is terrified and runs off screaming "Indians! Indians!" We never see what happened to the man up on the tree, but it is clear he is dead.
52	* ChewingTheScenery: You're half afraid Aguirre's going to ''eat'' that monkey.
53	* ColdHam: Kinski as Aguirre is extremely dramatic, snarling obviously deranged dialogue -- at a perfectly normal volume, and limping around instead of stomping and flailing.
54	* DeathGlare: If looks could kill, Aguirre's could.
55	* {{Determinator}}: Aguirre will never ever give up. Eventually deconstructed as [[spoiler:everyone dies because of his insane quest and he mentally snaps while surrounded by enemies.]]
56	* DissonantSerenity: Aguirre in general. Specifically during his [[BadassBoast monologue]] about being [[TitleDrop the wrath of God]], speaks in a low voice, almost whispering.
57	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The entire expedition goes utterly wrong. Everybody dies, and the last scene is Aguirre completely snapping while drifting along the Amazon, surrounded by monkeys and corpses. Historically, Aguirre would eventually be captured and executed by the Spanish, and this version is in a dire enough situation that he almost certainly won't get far enough for his own countrymen to kill him.]]
58	* TheDragon: Perucho, Aguirre's right-hand man, doer of dirty work.
59	* DramaticNecklaceRemoval: When Aguirre rips the necklace with the golden trinket off the native's neck.
60	* DwindlingParty: Party members die off one after the other until only Aguirre is left standing.
61	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Don Fernando de Guzmán's introduction scene has Gonzalo Pizarro bring up Guzmán's nobility and accomplishments as we see Guzmán mindlessly munching down on food. This shows us that Guzmán is a bumbling buffoon who isn't fit to lead anything.
62	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Aguirre loves his daughter. Maybe even [[ParentalIncest too much]]...
63	* [[EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench Everything Sounds Creepier in German]]
64	* EvilAllAlong: While the evil intentions of Aguirre and Perucho become obvious very soon, it will come as a surprise to most first-time viewers that [[spoiler:Carvajal]] is playing for the evil team.
65	* FatBastard: PlayedWith for Don Fernando de Guzmán. He's overweight and goes along with Aguirre as his puppet king. However, of all the traitors, he's the least malicious and much less prone to [[KickTheDog kicking the dog]]. Even the scene showing his gluttony, when he gorges himself on their low supplies whilst his men starve, is played for laughs when they all just steal his food when he's not looking.
66	* ForegoneConclusion: The OpeningScroll reveals that the expedition is lost, and its cause a fiction specifically invented to trick white colonists to their deaths.
67	* FromBadToWorse: The whole journey in a nutshell. Things for Aguirre and the crew just gets worse and worse as they search for El Dorado.
68	* GenreDeconstruction: ''Aguirre'' can be watched as a genre deconstruction of the "jungle adventure" movie genre. A group of (mostly) white explorers ventures into an unknown land in pursuit of a fabled city of gold -- but there is no lost city, no treasures to be won, no battles to be fought, and no secrets to be discovered; the river and jungle just go on and on forever. The good guys perish together with the bad guys, killed more or less evenly by either the implacable jungle, or by each other, and nobody learns anything from it.
69	* AGodAmI: More exactly, the Wrath of God.
70	* GoodIsDumb: The considerate and noble-minded Ursúa is indeed very easy prey for Aguirre and his cronies.
71	* HongKongDub: Of sorts. The film has a large international cast, and the only common language was English. It was then dubbed into German. This has the odd effect that, when watching it subtitled in English, the subs sometimes match the lips.
72	* HopeSpot: Guzmán spares Ursúa from immediate execution, so he'll later free himself and save the day, right? [[spoiler:Wrong. Ursúa spends the rest of the movie wounded, and when he seems to have finally recovered a bit, he is hanged on Aguirre's orders.]]
73	* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Ursúa trusts Carvajal way too much.
74	* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: The slave Baltasar talks of how he was once a member of the upper caste in the Incan empire, and no-one dared look him in the eye. "Now it is I who has my face lowered to the ground." This also foreshadows how the Spaniards will be humbled.
75	* HungryJungle: The RiverOfInsanity, the lack of food, the hostile natives, and the otherwise total isolation drive the group insane.
76	* {{Hypocrite}}: Carvajal. Guzmán and Perucho to a lesser degree.
77	* InsertCameo: Creator/WernerHerzog's hand is one of the ones keeping Aguirre's daughter's carriage from tipping into the Amazon.
78	* ItsQuietTooQuiet: Then the natives appear.
79	* KangarooCourt: Set up to condemn Ursúa.
80	* KensingtonGore: The blood looks pretty fake.
81	* KickTheDog: Yell at the horse, toss the monkey.
82	* LeftHanging: The ultimate fate of Armando and Inés, and also Aguirre himself.
83	* LeaveTheCameraRunning: Many scenes. A few of them, like an initial shot of a tumultuous river, don't have actors included. These serve to highlight how insignificant the Spaniards and their strivings are compared to nature.
84	* LosingYourHead: Taking a rest after the storming of an Indian village, Aguirre notices two soldiers sitting somewhat apart discussing desertion. One of them says that he has counted the river bends they passed. He draws a map into the sand and is counting out the river bends to his companion as Perucho approaches quietly from behind with a machete. When the man is at "nine", Perucho swipes his head off, and we get a shot of the head lying on the ground, counting "ten".
85	* MacGuffinLocation: The expedition is searching for El Dorado -- The CityOfGold.
86	* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: "This didn't hurt as much as I thought it would."
87	* MindScrew: The ship in the treetops. SharedMassHallucination? SanitySlippage? Then why do ''we'' see the ship? Are we getting mad, too? If it is real, how the hell did it get up there? And if Aguirre is right in saying that it is real, does that mean that Aguirre is [[OnlySaneMan sane, and the others have gone around the bend?]]
88	* MrExposition: Gonzalo Pizarro, and a fine job he does.
89	* NervesOfSteel: While he is far from a stoic man, there is one notable instance for Aguirre. When the keg containing the gunpowder catches fire, everyone else panics and runs for cover -[[FunnyBackgroundEvent with Emperor Guzmán jumping back first into the river]]-, while Aguirre simply picks it up and tosses it as far away as possible, saving the raft and its tripulation with it.
90	%%* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed
91	* OffWithHisHead: One of the more surreal moments of the film is when this happens to a dissenting member of the crew...whose severed head ''continues speaking'' afterwards.
92	* OpeningScroll: One given at the start of the film stating the story of Aguirre's crew.
93	* ParentalIncest: When Aguirre finally loses it, he states what he plans to do with his daughter, [[spoiler:whom he fails to remember is already dead.]]
94	--> '''Lope de Aguirre:''' I, the wrath of God, will marry my own daughter and with her I'll found the purest dynasty the earth has ever seen.
95	* PetTheDog: Most of the malicious characters get these.
96	** Aguirre's interactions with his daughter.
97	** Guzmán makes a point not to execute Ursúa but rather to try him, and later defies Aguirre by sparing the man.
98	** When attacking a native village, Carvajal is seen rushing to an injured soldier's side, trying to help him.
99	* PirateParrot: Perucho's parrot. Perucho may not be a pirate, but he definitely is of equally low moral fibre.
100	* ProtagonistTitle: Aguirre is the main character, and he declares himself the "Wrath of God" at one point.
101	* PuppetKing: Guzmán is set up as a puppet emperor by Aguirre. By giving the formal leadership to the only other person of nobility, Aguirre assures that Guzmán cannot ever turn back or get second thoughts on their rebellion. Given that Guzmán is pretty incompetent compared to Aguirre, it is clear that the real power will stay with Aguirre.
102	* RedHerringTwist: The men on the raft that is trapped in an eddy get killed by Indians overnight, but three of them have vanished. Armando explicitly wonders what happened to them. We never find out, and plotwise the whole incident serves only as a pretext for Aguirre to show disobedience to Ursúa. Similarly, it is never answered what the wounded Ursúa hides in his fist, if anything. It's brought up twice, but it seems to be totally insignificant in the end.
103	* RiverOfInsanity: The whole plot, which unfold as the party drifts on a literal river, the Amazon.
104	* RousingSpeech: Aguirre gives two of these of importance: First he persuades the men who accompany him to mutiny, and the second is ironic because [[spoiler:the people he tries to rouse are all dead]].
105	* SaharanShipwreck: An abandoned ship is found atop a tree in the middle of the jungle. The original script expanded this into an actual subplot related to Orellana[[note]]The Amazon sometimes has drastic changes of water flow so it's actually not ''that'' far-fetched for a ship to end up trapped in a tree[[/note]] but the final cut leaves it ambiguous and it might as well be a figment of the men's imagination, since they are all mad at that point. Since ''Aguirre'' is the ultimate RiverOfMadness story, this is actually very fitting.
106	* SameLanguageDub: According to Creator/WernerHerzog, Creator/KlausKinski requested too much money for the dubbing session, and so his lines were performed by another actor.
107	* ScaryBlackMan: Parodied when a black slave is forced to remove his clothes and run ahead of the soldiers in the belief that he will scare the natives.
108	* SceneryPorn: The Amazon is absolutely gorgeous to behold.
109	* ShoutOut:
110	** Two cases of wacky BlackComedy that often strike viewers as bizarre are actually shout-outs to Literature/TheIcelandicSagas: The severed head counting "ten" and the lethally wounded man commenting "the long arrows are becoming a fashion" are scenes taken nearly word-for-word from ''Njál's Saga'' and ''Literature/GrettirsSaga'' respectively. The latter instance is, however, not in the English dub.
111	** Aguirre's line "What is a throne but a plank red with velvet?" is an authentic if anachronistic quote from UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte.
112	* SinisterMinister: Oily Carvajal, who manages to be a religious fanatic ''and'' a corrupt, greedy hypocrite at the same time.
113	* SlidingScaleOfCynicismVersusIdealism: A very cynical movie.
114	* SluggishSloths: {{Discussed}} when the title character finds one on the side of the Amazon:
115	-->'''Aguirre:''' This animal sleeps its whole life away. It's never really awake.
116	* SpoilerCover: The [[https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/517foppBYlL.jpg original poster]] shows the death of Aguirre's daughter with an arrow in her stomach, which happens around the end of the movie, with Aguirre being completely unfazed by it.
117	* StupidEvil: Aguirre's followers betray their commander Ursúa and go downstream on the Amazon in search of El Dorado. [[spoiler:They all die. Turns out that taking orders from a raving evil lunatic wasn't a very good idea]].
118	* SurrealHorror: A very muted but still pronounced example. While the film starts out as a trip through the jungle, numerous unexplained and/or bizarre events begin happening with the characters displaying little to no reaction to. By the end, the audience ends up feeling in the same state of madness as the characters.
119	* TitleDrop: Late into the film, Aguirre adopts the title of "Wrath of God".
120	* TooDesperateToBePicky: Two members of the party are so starved near the end of the movie that they resort to eating algae from the raft.
121	* TooImportantToWalk: Early on we see the ladies being carried in a sedan across dangerous terrain.
122	* TranquilFury: When Aguirre makes his final monologue proclaiming eternal vengeance on any who would disobey him, to a raft of corpses and monkeys no less, he speaks with in a low, sedate voice. This was a case of EnforcedMethodActing.
123	* TranslationConvention: Filmed in German, while the characters have to be understood by the viewer as speaking Spanish.
124	* TunelessSongOfMadness: Perucho has a habit of singing monotonously to himself, particularly while he's getting ready to do something unpleasant.
125	* UnreliableNarrator: Carvajal.
126	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory:
127	** The story is a conflation of the historical UsefulNotes/FranciscoDeOrellana expedition of 1541-42 with the Ursúa-Aguirre expedition of 1560, seasoned with a taste of Joseph Conrad's ''Literature/HeartOfDarkness''.
128	** Aguirre's rebellion in the film goes south ''much'' faster than the real one, which actually managed to seize the Spanish colony of Isla Margarita. It ended not because of native attacks, but because their attempt at invading Venezuela was met by loyal Spanish troops and an offer of a pardon, which Aguirre's men accepted. He then murdered his own daughter before being captured and shot.
129	* VillainProtagonist: Aguirre.
130	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
131	** What happened to the horse?
132	** How the ship came up into the treetops is never resolved. In the DVDCommentary, Herzog reveals that the ship originally was part of a subplot that was dropped in the course of filming; it was intended to be a real ship used by Orellana, not a hallucination. He has not explained how the ship came up there, though.
133	** Armando, Ursúa's right hand man, is never seen again after escaping his cage.
134	** Inés walks off into the forest after getting fed up with the whole expedition and is never heard from again.

Context Film / AguirreTheWrathOfGod