Dan Jardine in The House Next Door:
Ben Livant astutely identified Herzog’s later foray into the Amazon, Fitzcarraldo, as a footnote to the grand text that is Aguirre. I would go a step further to suggest that Coppola’s own jungle initiative, Apocalypse Now, and much of the oeuvre of Terrence Malick, are also footnotes—however grand, impressive and flawed they may be—to Herzog’s seminal work.
Haunting Life
It was annoying to find that this particular DVD edition lacks the German audio, especially as it does have a commentary track, but being forced into the English dub isn't as bad as it might seem: even the German version, apparently, has some characters dubbed. My only regret is that it detracted from Kinski's seething madness -- it's hard to take anyone seriously when their words are out of sync with their mouths.
But it was glorious nonetheless. Brother Gaspar de Carvajal relates from his diary the story of Don Lope de Aguirre, part of a Spanish expedition through the jungles in search of El Dorado. Things do not go well. Lack of food; unforgiving terrain; unforgiving natives -- cannibals, strangely resistant to Carvajal's proselytizing. Madness.
Carvajal preaches with blood and iron; Aguirre names himself the wrath of God. Neither can stand in the face of nature -- the face of God, and His wrath. Strange and slow, beautiful and terrible, quite literally sublime.
The film is almost organic in its elegance and its ugliness, and its realism. Partly this is due to Herzog's use of unplanned shots and ad hoc scenes, even the casting -- that piper, he explains in the commentary, the creator of those haunting, melancholy sounds, was a retarded beggar he found on the streets. Aguirre feels real. It feels like life, in all its glorious and terrible madness, which is why it's so tremendously satisfying.