Werner Herzog's haunting film brings to the screen one of the bloodiest and most bizarre footnotes in the history of the Spanish conquests in the Americas. In 1560, a band of conquistadors, led by Pidro de Ursua (Guerra) and his sidekick Aguirre the Madman (Kinski) disappeared into the Amazon jungle in search of the mystical city El Dorado. Although the exact outcome of this expedition is unclear, Herzog weaves a possible tale of murder and insanity propelled by Aguirre's lust to found his own dynasty in South America with the progeny of his incestuous relations with his daughter. With the aid of dazzling cinematography and a haunting choral score, Herzog creates a hallucinatory, hermetic world of madness and decay that comments on 20th century fascism.
1972, color, 1 hour 35 minutes, Germany