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Fitzcarraldo Movie Review

Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 German epic adventure film directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski in the main role. It is a very self-important movie.

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“I must stop my ship!“

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This is a story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an extremely determined man who intends to build an opera house in the middle of a jungle by transporting a steam ship over a hill. My main issue with this movie is the directing. I wasn’t a fan of ‘Aguirre’ and I am not that big of a fan of this movie as well, so you could say that I do not quite care for Werner Herzog himself. And certainly his directing here with all the dangerous filming production that he did feels very narcissistic to me, plus the protagonist being too similar to the man in question did not help these matters either.

Fitzcarraldo is an absolute spectacle of purely cinematic adventurous thrills that only movies can offer. There is no denying that the movie is gorgeous to behold. Its sense of scale, adventure and danger has rarely been rivaled even in Hollywood movies. The sets are obviously authentic and it paid off that they filmed all of this for real as it lent a lot of authenticity to the picture.

The costumes, sets, cinematography and score are all excellent. The performances are uniformly terrific with Klaus Kinski delivering another strong work in a Herzog movie. He was difficult to work with, but his lack of likability helped the role a lot, though I would still contend that the film lacked larger psychological insight behind his character and his quest. I did respect the usage of real natives and their language in the film, though obviously the tales of mistreatment on set aren’t cool.

Fitzcarraldo is one of those overlong movies that have a lagging setup and are in desperate need of tighter editing. I was bored pretty quickly despite me loving the technical aspects and the adventurous tone. The movie should have been shorter plain and simple. The protagonist is also interesting, but there is little drama mined from this quest and very little insight as I’ve said above, making the movie a pure spectacle with almost no substance to it whatsoever, which is a problem that I have with most Herzog movies.

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Fitzcarraldo represents the typically self-important, grandiose filmmaking from Werner Herzog. This is an epic adventurous tale with incredible technical craftsmanship on display. The fact that it was actually filmed on location also lent it a lot of authenticity. However, the protagonist’s quest was barely given any psychological insight and the film’s runtime was obviously bloated. It’s an interesting movie, but one that focuses on style over substance as is usual for this director.

My Rating – 3.5