Jeri Jacquin

Currently on 4K Ultra HD for the first time from writer/producer/director Werner Herzog and Shout! Studios comes a tale of greed with AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD.

It is 1560 and Spanish conquistadors are marching through the Incan Empire into the Amazon rainforest looking for El Dorado. These men, along with hundreds of slaves under the control of Gonzalo Pizarro (Alejandro Repulles) are pulling cannons and women in carriers through vines, mud and anything else the jungle has for them.

Pizarro decides to build rafts to go down the river and orders Don Pedro de Ursua (Ruy Guerra), along with his mistress Dona Ines (Helena Rojo) and daughter Flores (Cecilia Rivera), to take men with the order to be back in one week. Along with Ursua is Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), a second-in-command and Don Fernando de Guzman (Peter Berling) speaking for the Spanish crown. Also going on the river is Brother Gaspar de Carvajal (Del Negro) to bring the word of God to all he finds.

Another of the rafts is caught in the rapids and by the next morning the men are dead or missing. Pizarro wants to retrieve the men but Aguirre has other plans and so do the natives. When Ursua wants to turn back to Pizarro, Aguirre tells the men of all the riches of El Dorado and convinces the men to continue on with him. Bringing on Guzman as their new leader, they keep moving down the river. Moment after moment brings more tension to the men as they decide who it is they are going to follow.

Finally, Aguirre declares that he is the rightful leader as everyone aboard the raft begins to suffer becoming malnourished and still under the attack of the natives. Aguirre comes face to face with the choices he has made!

Kinski as Aguirre looks, from the very onset, like someone you wouldn’t want to cross paths with. He is devious, cunning and has eyes for only one thing – El Dorado. Kinski gives us all the looks without necessarily the words to know exactly what Aguirre is willing to do and what to do to those who get in the way of his plans. Guerra as Ursua is the first leader and has the audacity to bring his mistress and daughter into such a dangerous and desolate place filled with natives who have no time for intruders. By the time he realizes that it might be best to turn back – he is up against those who want the riches.

Negro as Brother Carvajal wants to reach the natives with the good book, the problem is he can’t get close enough to them for that to happen. When he sees what is happening aboard the raft, he begins to understand what is happening to the men and the danger they are all in. Berling as Guzman is gullible, misguided and has no thought for his own men which becomes clear to everyone on the raft but serves Aguirre’s purpose.

Shout out to Rojo as Ines for doing the exact thing I would have done surrounded by a bunch of greedy men.

Other cast include Daniel Ades as Perucho, Edward Roland as Okello, and Justo Gonzalez as Gonzalez.

SHOUT! Studios has grown into a tremendous multi-platform media company. Releasing new animated features such as the exquisite Long Way North, and the epic fantasy Beauty and The Beast. Also, their own original horror film, Fender Bender gives fans a good scare. For more of what SHOUT! Studios has to offer please visit www.shoutfactory.com.

AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD on 4K Ultra HD and Bluray on both Discs Bonus Features include New 4K Transfer of the 35mm Original Camera Negative, New Presented in Dolby Vision, Audio Commentary with Writer/Producer/Director Werner Herzog, and Audio Commentary with Werner Herzog, Moderated by Lauren Straub (in German with English Subtitles).

AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD is an epic tale that Herzog released in 1972. It is not a film with consistent dialogue but instead allows the viewer an opportunity to come up with their own views of each of the characters and the surroundings they are in. The director says of the film that “history doesn’t change, and that the desire for power and wealth is always a drug.”

Admitting that the plot of the film is fictional, he does bring 16-century events and historical figures to the story. He also admits that no one wanted to finance his film until a company in France picked it up. He says that he wrote the screenplay in three days on a bus full of drunk soccer players. Herzog is a storyteller that brings in a haunting tale here filled with realism in men believing they have the right to ravage natives for riches and natives making it clear that they will protect what is theirs.

In the end – it is the search for El Dorado!

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