Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) is Werner Herzog's historical epic, and you can watch online on iFILM. It's 1561, soon after the fall of the Inca empire. A Spanish party descends from the Peruvian mountains into the Amazon basin, hunting the golden city of El Dorado. Hunger, swamps and arrows from the trees thin their ranks, and a madman seizes command of what's left.

Klaus Kinski plays Lope de Aguirre, a conquistador with a frozen stare who declares himself the wrath of God and drives his doomed raft deeper into nowhere. Herzog shot in the real Peruvian jungle with no sets and no safety net, and that reality soaks every frame: muddy water, exhausted faces, a raft drifting in slow circles among monkeys at the close. The off-camera war between director and star fed the film its feverish obsession.

This is a cornerstone of New German Cinema and one of the great studies of power eating itself, a clear ancestor of Apocalypse Now. Hypnotic, slow and brutal, it rewards anyone willing to sink into its descent. Stream Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) online on iFILM.