By Marta Jary
In the early 1900s, the outskirts of the Peruvian Amazon were overrun by nouveau-riche, billionaire rubber barons taking industrial advantage of the jungle’s natural resources and living like kings in castle-like mansions, built side by side with the mud huts of locals. In this ludicrous playground, rubber baron, Fitzcarraldo (Klaus Kinski), is a man with a dream – in the jungle, he wants to build the grandest opera house ever known and invite the world’s greatest performer at the time, Sarah Bernhardt, to perform there. To do so, he must literally haul an immense boat over hills and through forests to sail it through uncharted rivers. The seemingly pointless, perilous mission establishes him as a pioneer and a manic madman, courting extreme physical danger for the possession of great art.
Shockingly beautiful, with breathtaking cinematography and typically theatrical performances, the film mirrors the mania of its hysterical protagonist, and plays out like a very strange fever dream. Director Werner Herzog (Aguirre: The Wrath Of God, Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn, Encounters At The End Of The World) has said that he views the film, in retrospect, as a fable about a dreamer, and a film that can inspire an audience to elevate the limits of their own obsessions, even when they are muted by practicality. Perhaps his vision is now through rose-coloured glasses – it’s been over three decades since the film was completed, and the director’s problems while making it are the stuff of legend. “I shouldn’t make movies anymore,” Herzog famously said during the disaster-plagued shoot. “I should go to a lunatic asylum.”
The director adamantly argued against using special effects, and chose a location in Peru 500 miles from the nearest city. The film is nothing short of spectacular, but the shoot nearly killed the entire crew, who were mysteriously shot at with arrows from the jungle and constantly berated by Kinski. He offended the local tribespeople to such an extent that a chief offered to have him killed. Kinski also exchanged death threats with Herzog (the director claims that Kinski, his favourite leading man, smiled only once in the 200 or so films he made, and Fitzcarraldo was it.), all of which is captured in Les Blank’s documentary, Burden Of Dreams, which tells the extraordinary story behind this remarkable film, which stands as a testament to creative vision and insanity, two essential Herzog themes.
