Fitzcarraldo(1982)

Director: Werner Herzog
Country: Germany

What if you can't move a mountain, you can always move a ship over a mountain. What if you can't find the golden gates of El Dorado, you can always build an opera house on the Amazon. That is exactly what this film is about. It is about dreams. It is about a visionary. It is about how he risks his life to pursue his dreams, his visions.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald or "Fitzcarraldo" is a man who once wanted to build a railway through the amazon forests. Now bankrupt, he still dreams to build an opera house on the amazon. He tries ice production to raise money. Failed, he borrows money from his lady love and sets on one of the most ambitious projects ever taken up by man. He sails upstream on river pachitea in hope of setting up a rubber plantation. Deserted by almost his entire crew midway, he goes on with the help of local indians in the pursuit of his dreams.

The film boasts of some wonderful cinematography. Especially the dusk and night shots are no less than mesmerizing. Herzog, being the wonderful director that he is, makes this long, slow film extremely enjoyable. There are very prominent similarities to his earlier film "Aguirre, der zorn gottes". Like the backdrop of the amazon, the hostile indians, the megalomaniac central character and most obviously the last scene, where Fitzcarraldo stands on his ship with a content smile and an opera playing on the deck, which definitely reminds us of another man standing alone on a ship and uttering "when I Aguirre, the wrath of god asks the birds to fall dead from the trees, the birds will drop dead from the trees." He doesn't make this film to show us whether Fitzcarraldo fulfils his dream or not. Rather he shows us the extent to which this man can dare to dream, the extent to which he dares to go to fulfil his dreams.

And everything apart, the one singular thing that makes this film a must see is Fitzcarraldo himself, played by the greatest actor ever on earth. Klaus Kinski. He shouts, stares with mad eyes, gazes lovingly at indian kids, looks lost when he hears an opera playing, dreams, loves with utmost passion, shows authority over the crew of the ship, looks beyond the thinkable, his eyes have it all. If you want to watch this film for one reason, let it be Kinski. And he will have you in his spells. For ever.