Before I start this review, I'd like to say a huge "FUCK YOU!" to Anchor Bay Entertainment as their subtitles are absolutely fucking awful. For a professional company to leave out numerous critical lines of dialog, it's a disgrace.

As it's a bank holiday, I decided to tackle this epic that's been sitting on my shelf too long unwatched. The term "Epic" is used far too frequently these days and its meaning a bit diluted, but this is a film that truly stands up to the word in every way. Although the running time is over two and a half hours, not a second of that time is wasted as we follow Fitzcarraldo's bizarre plan in action, toeing the line…

herzog has an enduring interest in insanity and the many ways in which it takes form. this is an unusual film for both herzog and kinski, because fitzcarraldo is not an obviously insane character. instead, he is passionate, ambitious, and naive, but also maybe on the brink of insanity. the film follows what happens when such a man commits himself to an epic undertaking.

fitzcarraldo, the white would-be impresario, always in his white suit, is beacon-like, against the green rainforest, or the brown bodies of the natives. he and his imposing steamboat, also white, like an extension of himself, fight their way madly and obssessively toward their objective.

it is difficult not to think of kinski the person when watching…

Film #17 of the June Challenge

In 1982 Werner Herzog released a film for which they pulled a real ship over a real mountain...in the middle of the South American rain forest... with the help of a tribe of Indios with whom they could barely communicate and who offered to kill the main actor... and they filmed that whole thing almost twice... if thats not a testament to the raw passion and pure insanity of this man I don't know what is.

Herzog is a director whos work has always been centered around the unknowable, the unobtainable, that which is forever lost and that which maybe can be rediscovered. He is a manic traveler whos movies constantly oscillate between being…

Film #17 of the June Challenge

In 1982 Werner Herzog released a film for which they pulled a real ship over a real mountain...in the middle of the South American rain forest... with the help of a tribe of Indios with whom they could barely communicate and who offered to kill the main actor... and they filmed that whole thing almost twice... if thats not a testament to the raw passion and pure insanity of this man I don't know what is.

Herzog is a director whos work has always been centered around the unknowable, the unobtainable, that which is forever lost and that which maybe can be rediscovered. He is a manic traveler whos movies constantly oscillate between being…

I think it was hard to like Fitzcarraldo at times because it lacked the raw charisma of Werner Herzog's earlier work. But then again its something completely new. Something great indeed.

With its opening, an epic condemnation of human kind done in a way only Herzog can, I was chilled and excited with deep brooding shots of the foggy jungle. This was going to be just like Aguirre. But it's not at all like The Wrath of God.

But there are incredible similarities. Impossible missions involving men on boats. Impossibly isolated jungles, scary native Americans and of course KLAUS KINSKI. He gives one of my new favorite performances. It amazes me how possessed he seems. This is apparent in Nosferatu…