Aguirre, the Wrath of God 4K UHD
'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' Director: Werner Herzog (1972) BFI 4K Ultra HD | O-card slipcase | German or English with English subtitles
Shot entirely on location in the wild Amazonian jungle near Machu Picchu, Aguirre, The Wrath of God stars the legendarily volatile Klaus Kinski (The Great Silence) as a power-crazed sixteenth-century explorer who leads a troupe of conquistadors on a doomed expedition in search of El Dorado, the fabled 'City of Gold'.
A visceral, ambitious exploration of megalomania and savage beauty - with a hypnotic score by krautrock group Popol Vuh that blends pulsing Moog with a spectral choir of voices - Aguirre remains one of Herzog's most brilliant achievements and one of German cinema's totemic masterpieces.
Bonus feature: Fata Morgana (1971, 77 mins)
Herzog's hallucinatory desert odyssey, composed of mirage-like images and Leonard Cohen's plaintive songs, transforms the Sahara into a mythic wasteland. Neither documentary nor fiction, Fata Morgana drifts between creation myth, ruined landscapes, and human fragility, offering a visionary prelude to the obsessions that would culminate in Aguirre. With narration by Lotte H. Eisner recounting the Mayan creation myth of Popol Vuh.
Special features include:
- Audio commentary with Werner Herzog on Aguirre
- Audio commentary with actor and filmmaker Crispin Glover on Fata Morgana
- Introduction by critic Mark Kermode
- A Raft of Troubles: Herzog, Kinski and the Art of Darkness (2025, 19 mins): film historian Nic Wassell considers truth, fiction, myth, spectacle and the palpable sense of danger exuded by Aguirre
- The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (1967, 16 mins): symbolic drama in which four young men prepare to face an imagined enemy
- Last Words (1968, 13 mins): a film about the last man to leave a former leper colony
- Precautions Against Fanatics (1969, 11 mins): satire about horse-racing enthusiasts
