Aguirre, Wrath of God
Werner Herzog's 1972 dark masterpiece combines European colonialism, naturalism, and the deterioration of the human psyche. In this new German precursor to Apocalypse Now!, death becomes an easy thing to deal with as Klaus Kinski's titular character brings us deeper and deeper into a world of horror. Several times in the movie, people are killed and deal with death in a strange manner. One soldier remarks, upon being hit with a large arrow "longer arrows are coming into fashion," and then dies. Just before one of the slaves dies, he believes his fateful missile is a hallucination. Even Aguirre, despite driving all his followers and his lover to their doom, continues onward, calling even for wildlife to join him in his conquest of New Spain. Herzog experiences his treacherous settings along with the characters, for Aguirre he spent much of the process on rafts. Obviously, this plays into making these films incredibly action-packed.
