Fitzcarraldo - Review

Winter is the coldest, darkest, sleepiest and fattest of seasons. It's the season of sweat pants and forgotten resolutions. The thrill in your day consists of rolling up a paper coffee cup rim, but never, ever, to win. You try to consume the easiest, most comforting stuff until, like some subterranean rodent, you feel it is time to poke your head up into the sky and squint into the warm sun again.

If winter had a badly written haiku it would read as follows:

Cold dark winter day
Runny nose but no tissue
I hate everything

All this is a round about way of saying that like any tired, cranky Canadian, I decided to kick my own butt (and brain) with a Werner Herzog movie night. I had a DVD (bought new and cheap!) of Fitzcarraldo. The cult classic seemed like the ticket to help me forget all the sick and miserable people shuffling around Toronto. At the end of the evening my little troubles seemed like small beans compared to madness, obsession, and toil in the jungles of the Amazon. Here's the review:

Fitzcarraldo
(Peru / West Germany, directed by Werner Herzog)

I really like Werner Herzog. His films can be somewhat insane, darkly hilarious, and sometimes brilliant. Not all his films are classic, or even very good, but some of them are so bloody great you forgive him his shortcomings. Fitzcarraldo was written and directed by Herzog. It was filmed in the Peruvian jungles and captures the sublime beauty and horrible reality of an ancient society colliding with turn of the century industry. It is the story of obsession and folly on a grand scale. It stars frequent Herzog collaborator Klaus Kinski. It has everything I love about Herzog's best films and IT WAS FANTASTIC.

Okay, so now you know where I stand. Fitzcarraldo is certainly not a light or fluffy movie, and at two and a half hours it can sometimes feel like a long slog. But the labour is so well rewarded. The immersion into the jungle, into that space and the madness that dwells there, is so complete. The unique jungle environments are a common setting for Herzog that he repeats in other films like Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and Rescue Dawn. Even compared to all his other work, Herzog rarely reaches as far, or gains as much, as he does with Fitzcarraldo.

The story of Fitzcarraldo was inspired by true events. During the turn of the 20th century, "rubber barons" in South America made huge amounts of money tapping and exporting the sap of the rubber trees. As their wealth grew, they feigned to live like European aristocracy in towns along the Amazon river. Fitzcarraldo (actually an Irish descendant named Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald), is a bankrupt railroad owner obsessed with bringing the beauty of opera to the wilds of his frontier town. With the love (and money) of his town's madame, Fitzcarraldo buys a steamboat to claim his own piece of the rubber wealth. With a largely suspect crew, Fitzcarraldo sails his boat into unfriendly territory and finally actualizes his plan to drag the steamboat out of the water and over a small mountain in order to circumvent impassable rapids.

Fitzcarraldo attempts to get a small business loan to buy a steamboat so he can drag it up a mountain and bring opera to the jungle. It's a tough sell.
The operative plot to Fitzcarraldo is so great I'm going to repeat it. With the help of a vast group of indigenous people, Fitzcarraldo builds a huge, multi leveled pulley system and drags a steamboat over a mountain. The indigenous people Fitzcarraldo finds to help him initially think he's a God. His passion is inspiring, but his methods are obviously flawed. Fitzcarraldo pays for his obsession when his allies reveal their own plans to appease the river Gods. Fitzcarraldo ends in tragic yet triumphant resolution with the hero both destroyed and redeemed by his passions.

This sort of tension cannot be good for digestion
Even with the intensity, humour and raw emotion Kinski brings to the title role, I think the real power of Fitzcarraldo is in the visuals. The central theme of man struggling with his passions in a hostile world (so important in many of Herzog's films) has never been as boldly realized as in the sight of a giant, creaking boat being hauled up over the jungle floor. The fact that this was a real boat, being pulled up a real hill, is the entire point. No CGI, no models, and no rational advice to stop trying to pull a God damned boat up a mountain could stop Herzog from filming his vision. It is there and it is real. I love that. I also love how Herzog holds a shot just long enough to become almost uncomfortable. The visuals overwhelm our normally short attention spans, just as the silence, and sounds of the jungle overwhelm any of the dialogue.

Fitzcarraldo is not the type of movie you pop into the DVD player when you want silly entertainment (although I must admit I find aspects of it pretty funny). Fitzcarraldo is the kind of movie that requires some effort to watch, but it is an engrossing story. The image of Fitzcarraldo on top of his boat, playing an opera record and being enraptured by the music while the natives follow him silently in their canoes stays in my mind. There are all sorts of messages in the movie, and all sorts of ways it may make an impression on you. I'll be happy to see Fitzcarraldo many more times in the years to come, and glean new images and impressions from this amazing film.

You should really watch Fitzcarraldo. You can find a cheap copy on DVD from the "Cult Classic Film Series" here in Canada. The packaging is red and yellow, with a distinct Grindhouse feel. I was afraid that the print might not be very good, but it was actually very clear and had quite a few bonus features.


Here's the dramatic (and German!) trailer for Fitzcarraldo.