FITZCARRALDO never flags; an unofficial "ambassador of the arts," if you will, he pushes on when his crew abandons him, cranking up the Caruso (literally, with a hand-cranked phonograph), and his Molly Aida becomes an almost Flying Dutchman phantom of the opera. "Our everyday life is an illusion," the Peruvian Indians say: "... Behind which lies the reality of dreams." Kinski as "Fitz" placates his contemplative captors and together they hew their way through the lush tropical forest. "It's only the dreamers who ever move mountains." Like AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD, FITZCARRALDO is a journey deep into Conrad's heart of darkness. Fitz, his "white whale" in tow, is striking in his white suit with his shock of reddish-yellow hair and his wide, staring blue eyes. When he first makes contact with the natives, they are in awe of him- partially because the coming of his white ship is the stuff of local legend, but perhaps, too, because he is as white and as ethereal as his vessel. (And Kinski's turn as the title character in Herzog's brilliant remake of NOSFERATU has to be seen to be believed: I saw it in an art house when it opened and, despite my lifelong love of fright films, was creeped out by it.) "I am the spectacle in the jungle," he says. Indeed, and his journey is, as stated in the film, "a soul-stirring experience." No mythological god ever undertook a more monumental task. That the solution to the problem of being abandoned by the natives is arrived at by "the finest drunkard ever to stagger over this earth" is not a little ironic. It fits in, somehow, with the craziness of a dream being realized. When the camera literally rises to meet the Molly as she reaches the top of the mountain, it's the most glorious moment in a movie chock full of glorious moments. FITZCARRALDO is one of the greatest of the grand epics, and the movie's final denouement is an absolutely brilliant testament to the will (and willfulness) of Man. Fantastic film-making.
Review of Fitzcarraldo
