Popular reviews

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  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★★ 36

  Based on a true story! The boldest most ambitious project launched by Werner Herzog has become his worst nightmare! It was literally Herzog's "Apocalypse Now". Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong! It's as if the film was cursed right from the get go! Like Fitzcarraldo, Werner Herzog dives into the deep end of a mind numbing obsession!

  Behind the scenes Klaus Kinski goes on one of his legendary rampages and irks the natives to the point one of the chiefs goes out of his way to tell Herzog he would kill Kinski for him! There is no doubt about it Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog were both out of their ever lovin minds and the camera captured this…

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  Review by Neil Bahadur ½ 20

  "He pushed the opera house over the waterfall! Via the exploitation and labour of native Peruvians! But that's okay! BECAUSE HE WAS A GENIUS"

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  Review by Dirk Diggler ★★★★½ 8

  Fuck La La Land, this is the film for the ones who dreams! Its by these mad dreams and obsessions the most stunning achievements, moments and creations are made. Fitzcarraldo is a glorious, madly ambitious and fun spectacle.

  (sorry la la land that was unnecessary, i still like you)

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  Review by travis k ★★★ 5

  This movie is a metaphor for itself.

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 13

  As blood is spilled in Fitz's quest to do something no one has ever done (nor would ever do again), it became clearer than it ever has been before. There are no manmade wonders not built with blood. Perhaps this is why the Grand Canyon is said to be so magnificent--no one suffered to make it. It simply is, a vast stretch of land ripped out of the landscape by God, nature, or both. But manmade wonders have all been crafted by slave or serf labor, exploitation or oppression, blood money, or other ruthless contracts. Fitz's quest is predicated on blatant exploitation (of the religion of his workers, no less) and dangerous obsession. I don't know what wage Herzog paid…

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★ 2

  76/100

  Dragging the ship over the mountain occupies a much smaller percentage of the film's running time than I'd remembered—an hour and a half elapses before Fitz even announces/explains the plan. Nor does Herzog make this remarkable feat of engineering as visually spectacular as it might have been in the hands of a stronger formalist. Doesn't really matter, though, as there's plenty of awe to be mined from ordinary, everyday laboriousness. It's easy to forget, but utterly crucial, that nothing Fitzcarraldo does in this movie directly serves his ultimate purpose, which is to build an opera house in Iquitos; though he blares Caruso from the ship at key moments as a sort of self-motivational tool, his entire scheme is just…

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  Review by CJ Probst ★★★★★ 3

  Those of you who are unfamiliar or only recently acquainted with director Werner Herzog, you may only know him for his later work as one of the most interesting documentary filmmakers working today or for his eccentric and endlessly fascinating, well publicized personality. However, Herzog was made famous back in the day for being a frontrunner of the German New Wave film movement, making non-traditional narrative films that pushed the envelope of the cinema language. He has made a wide variety of films over the years and is often noted for the recurring theme of man’s relationship with nature and an intense reverence and respect for it, some might even say a fear of it. Fitzcarraldo is one of Herzog’s…

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★★★ 6

  "The arrogance of man is thinking that nature is in our control, and not the other way around." -Dr. Ishiro Serizawa, Godzilla (2014)

  Werner Herzog's exacting precision regarding the realism and scale of his films makes them truly enduring beauties. The old saying "the more fun something was to make, the less fun it is to watch" finds its ultimate inverse proof here in Fitzcarraldo: production was a disaster, but the result is a treasure. Klaus Kinski fought so often over such trivial matters that members of the crew offered to have him killed, and the dangerous nature of Herzog's audacious stunts and set pieces left at least two cast members dead. But from these hardships grew unprecedented cinematic art.…

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  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½

  I think we can all agree that we've got nothing but love for Cholo.
  Cholo is pretty much the coolest dude on the block.
  This movie raises a lot of questions;
  But above all else, what I want to know is:
  Does Cholo even realize how cool of a dude he is?

  #Ch0L0 #Y0L0 #jungl3$w@g #$pRiNgbr3@KiNth3jungl3 #m0st@wkw@rdDiNn3r$c3n3iNth3Hi$t0ry0fCiN3m@
  #Kl@u$KiN$Ki$f@c3

  operachic.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c83e69e201127943af0928a4-450wi

  5/5

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  Review by Joshua Dysart ★★★★★ 8

  There is, in virtually every single Herzog film, at least one moment in which the hammer of its authenticity hits me square between the eyes. This movie is filled with those moments.

  Then there’s this one bullshit Mister Roger’s Neighborhood model steamship shot that occurs during the rapids sequence and that Herzog holds on for far too long. Any other movie with smaller ambitions would’ve gotten away with it, but it looks tawdry in the middle of a Herzog experience. It made me laugh, which, you know, Herzog does love to make people laugh, so I guess it’s all good.

  Anyway, the ways and reasons in which Herzog deviates from the source material in his historical films always fascinates me.…

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  Review by shookone ★★★★ 1

  Werner Herzogs classic takes on a life of its own and gets out of hand - from fiction to documentary, from narration to spectacle, from Klaus Kinskis surreal demeanour to widespread landscape photography of the amazons.

  it's an epic battle between the two - the megalomaniac and its natural surrounding. Kinski remains as moderator of this arbitrary incident of a film - ridiculous, grotesque, frightening, at any rate highly physical. delusions of grandeur.

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  Review by Edgar Cochran ✝️ ★★★★★ 1

  Werner Herzog's tour-de-force cinematic expeditions into the wild still remain unparalleled by any standards thanks to an unbelievable musical score, a grand cinematography and an ambition so high that even Spielberg, Cameron, Jackson and the rest need CGI to accomplish such visuals.

  97/100