Looking at the reams of adoring praise in the comments section, and the high average score of 8.1 on the film's page, this is not likely to be a popular review with most people.
But I feel entitled to give my opinion. I have never seen a Werner Herzog movie before, but after hearing about this and discovering the IMDb page I thought it would be worth a rent. I sat down to watch it this afternoon devoid of any prejudgements, and watched attentively. I'd like to think I don't have a short attention span: if a film is good enough to keep me interested, then it doesn't matter what pace/colour/language/style/length it is. However, it did not take long for this movie to leave me somewhat frustrated. The story is very simple: an Emperor and his men set off searching for El Dorado. Fair enough. But this film fails to keep things interesting. Its first mistake is to not introduce any of its characters in a meaningful way. The crew are just faces, none of them play any significant part in the film. You do not see their lust for El Dorado. You only see their frustration in one exchange of dialogue late in the film.
Aquirre, the main character (played by Klaus Klinski), is the only one of any real interest. The emperor is fat, greedy and generally cares only for himself. The monk (and narrator) just wants to convert the savages. Ursua seems like he should have an important role, but is shot early on and remains silent for the rest of the movie. None of these characters have depth. Only Aguirre, but even then he possesses little more than an odd fascination, which I guess is credit to the actor and definitely not the script. The way he moves and talks, he is egocentric and clearly a little mad. Yet this is not a progression. He seems mad and selfish at the beginning, and at the end he is still mad and selfish, only slightly more so.
Another problem with the movie is the pace. Despite being only 1hr 30 minutes, the director successfully sucks all potential life from the film. The editing is abysmal. Nothing interesting going on, and shots linger for way too long. Most will probably claim something to do with art and beauty, but the fact is the editing is poor. There early two early shots of the river that linger for almost 30 seconds each, never shifting. You are just staring at a fast-moving current. Maybe to some people this is evocative. To me, it's just tedious.
The film would have a better atmosphere if it wasn't filmed almost documentary style. I hate to compare it to Apocalypse Now, but that film managed to create a thick atmosphere, through music but more specifically the excellent cinematography and editing. It had montages that helped to convey the feeling of madness, an almost dreamlike feeling. No such effects are used here. It is very plainly directed, in fact the direction is what lets the film down the most. When the music occasionally kicks in the film improves considerably, especially as in the end scene with Aguirre's daughter. But most of the music is completely silent, and unfortunately this doesn't convey any feeling of eerieness or tension, just boredom.
It doesn't help that half the dialogue seems dubbed even though I watched it in the original language with subtitles. It doesn't help that nothing eventful happens in the entire movie. It may not be an action movie, but something has to happened to keep our interest. Characters die, but I had no reason to care for any of them.
If people could reply to this I'm sure they'd say that I missed the point of the movie, and I guess they'd be correct. I see no point to this movie. I tried to enjoy it, but it is slow, tedious, uneventful, sometimes badly acted, lacking characterisation, poorly scripted... yeah, you could say it's beautiful, but only because the place where it was filmed was beautiful in the first place.
Overall, I'm put off Werner Herzog movies for the foreseeable future.
But I feel entitled to give my opinion. I have never seen a Werner Herzog movie before, but after hearing about this and discovering the IMDb page I thought it would be worth a rent. I sat down to watch it this afternoon devoid of any prejudgements, and watched attentively. I'd like to think I don't have a short attention span: if a film is good enough to keep me interested, then it doesn't matter what pace/colour/language/style/length it is. However, it did not take long for this movie to leave me somewhat frustrated. The story is very simple: an Emperor and his men set off searching for El Dorado. Fair enough. But this film fails to keep things interesting. Its first mistake is to not introduce any of its characters in a meaningful way. The crew are just faces, none of them play any significant part in the film. You do not see their lust for El Dorado. You only see their frustration in one exchange of dialogue late in the film.
Aquirre, the main character (played by Klaus Klinski), is the only one of any real interest. The emperor is fat, greedy and generally cares only for himself. The monk (and narrator) just wants to convert the savages. Ursua seems like he should have an important role, but is shot early on and remains silent for the rest of the movie. None of these characters have depth. Only Aguirre, but even then he possesses little more than an odd fascination, which I guess is credit to the actor and definitely not the script. The way he moves and talks, he is egocentric and clearly a little mad. Yet this is not a progression. He seems mad and selfish at the beginning, and at the end he is still mad and selfish, only slightly more so.
Another problem with the movie is the pace. Despite being only 1hr 30 minutes, the director successfully sucks all potential life from the film. The editing is abysmal. Nothing interesting going on, and shots linger for way too long. Most will probably claim something to do with art and beauty, but the fact is the editing is poor. There early two early shots of the river that linger for almost 30 seconds each, never shifting. You are just staring at a fast-moving current. Maybe to some people this is evocative. To me, it's just tedious.
The film would have a better atmosphere if it wasn't filmed almost documentary style. I hate to compare it to Apocalypse Now, but that film managed to create a thick atmosphere, through music but more specifically the excellent cinematography and editing. It had montages that helped to convey the feeling of madness, an almost dreamlike feeling. No such effects are used here. It is very plainly directed, in fact the direction is what lets the film down the most. When the music occasionally kicks in the film improves considerably, especially as in the end scene with Aguirre's daughter. But most of the music is completely silent, and unfortunately this doesn't convey any feeling of eerieness or tension, just boredom.
It doesn't help that half the dialogue seems dubbed even though I watched it in the original language with subtitles. It doesn't help that nothing eventful happens in the entire movie. It may not be an action movie, but something has to happened to keep our interest. Characters die, but I had no reason to care for any of them.
If people could reply to this I'm sure they'd say that I missed the point of the movie, and I guess they'd be correct. I see no point to this movie. I tried to enjoy it, but it is slow, tedious, uneventful, sometimes badly acted, lacking characterisation, poorly scripted... yeah, you could say it's beautiful, but only because the place where it was filmed was beautiful in the first place.
Overall, I'm put off Werner Herzog movies for the foreseeable future.