Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1973)

This is possibly the first foreign (subtitled) film I ever saw back in the late 1970’s. I’d gone over to Brum (to Virgin Records) and thought I’d treat myself to a bit of ‘other’ (culture). This Aguirre, and this Klaus Kinsky, was my alarming (and disturbing but also quite thrilling) introduction to the weird wonderful world of Werner Herzog.

I must have rewatched it at least half a dozen times over the last 40 years. And due to the acquisition of age, which should be ladling maturity into my watching, plus with better benefit of (very long) hindsight, I can see this film more clearly for what it is now: a strangely tedious malady of malaise.

I don’t marvel at it any more. I’m not taken in by it like I once was. Ok, so the opening sequence tracking down the misty mountain with the troop of conquistadors (to Popuh Vul soundtrack) is stunning, and the whole mental deterioration aboard the life-raft is startling. And of course you’ve got the Krazy Kinski compelling and commandeering your attention. But there are many langorous lulls in the pacing, and offbeat anti-climactic lurches in the dramatic development, of the film. It is quite easy to feel disengaged, and be having to stifle back glazed yawns boring their way through the trapdoor of your (sub) consciousness.

Krazy Klaus is what, ultimately, makes watching this film worthwhile.

What did he do with that little baby monkey? Well I can tell you, thankfully, he didn’t rip its head off with his bare teeth (he could have, and would have though – in the right wrong frame of mind)

According to legend there were a lot of argy bargy conflicts between Herzog and Kinski; so much so Herzog felt obliged to point a gun at Kinski and threat to shoot him if he didn’t do as he was told.

Amyway, the little monkeys have the last laugh. They over-run the life-raft and will eventually start eating everything and every body in a minute (so said my rather febrile imagination)

Even though I’ve kept a copy of this film on Dvd for posterity or nostalgia’s sake, I very much doubt I’ll be wanting to watch it yet again.

Dir: Werner Herzog, Germany

7/10 (based on what it once meant to me)

Woyzeck (1979)

What makes a “gute mensch”? Not Klaus Kinski. He’s qualifies as the original mad mensch No 1.

In this film he plays simpleton soldier “Woyzeck” going crazeee with insane jealousy that his young wife is messing about with an officer. And he’s also the subject of some kind of scientific  research project being conducted by a creepy Doc involving eating peas for 3 months.

Kinski crackles with forebodings, demented intents: “Woyzeck, you’re running through creation like an open razor” says creepy Doc. Klaus is doing that knuckle cracking beloved of scary people.

His pretty wife Marie is gonna get slapped if she carries on flirting with that officer: “You stinkt fit to smoke the angels out of heaven” Woyzeck says to her. Kinski has a way of saying “stinkt” that makes you smell the word with disgust.

Nobody in this film talks normal; it’s all aphoristic riddles : “A man is an abyss….you get dizzy looking in” says Woyzeck. Kinski is falling into his abyss… gonna go proper mad now; he’s gonna buy a very sharp knife – then he’s gonna stick it in the hot harlot. The wind has been telling him to do it.

He – Woyzeck or is it Kinski?! – walks wife off into a field, and stabs her bloodly to death. In slow-mo. Drives the knife in – 7, 8 times. Kinski is just the man to do a bloody stabbing. He’s got the mad eyes for it. He’s got the crazed anguished relish of a nutter off to a tee.

Maybe he’s gonna go rip that officer’s balls out with his teeth? But no. He disappears into a river.

More slo-moing at the end as Marie is found, examined by men in black coats – then removed by men in black coats to her coffin.

30 years on from when i saw my first Herzog film (it was Aguirre) and of course 30 years older, i feel less inclined to indulge in his supposed “visionary genius” these days. His oddball obtuseness seems more like wilful affectation than inspired imagination. Watching recent interviews of Herzog hasn’t helped preserve his cultish charisma either; he comes across, disappointingly,  like a mediocre middle-man, totally lacking the magnetic mystique his films were meant to be embodying.

Only Kinski’s demented performance makes this film watchably bearable. Or unbearably watchable.

Dir: Werner Herzog, Germany

5/10