Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski), who also is known as Fitzcarraldo, exhibits relentless obsession in regards to opera music, as he tries to convey his faith in building an opera house in a remote part of the Amazon jungle.  Most people thinks he is mad, except for Molly (Claudia Cardinale) who might be biased due to her love for him.  A previous endeavor has brought Fitzcarraldo into ruin as he tried to build a Trans-Andean Railway, but little support made the gigantic project fall through and it left him stranded in the jungle.  Currently, Fitzcarraldo tries make a fortune in creating ice in the jungle, but business is slow.  Thus, he tries to design new ideas that could help him get back on his feet while aiding him in his quest to build an opera house.

Through exploring options in business with the help of a rubber baron Fitzcarraldo gets a new vision of how to accomplish his great dream.  He quickly acts on his idea, as other prosperous business men begin to bet on how long it would take before Fitzcarraldo would go bankrupt.  The Amazon jungle constantly rests in the background reminding the audience about Darwin and his rule of survival of the fittest.  Similar notions can be drawn to the business world, as people making bad business deals often ruin themselves.  Even though Fitzcarraldo knows about this, he has strong faith in what he is doing, as he continues his obsessive pursuit.

Fitzcarraldo buys a steamboat with the help of Molly, which is in dire need of repair.  Before they can take off he hires a captain, Orinoco Paul (Paul Hittscher), whom he lets know that he needs a brave crew, but never reveals the true intentions of his business.  The journey does not go downstream as most anticipated; instead Fitzcarraldo, symbolically, takes the Molly Aida, named after his beloved, upstream.  They make a brief stop where he once began his railroad project to pick up some railroad track for Fitzcarraldo's secret project.  However, if the audience paid attention, they can deduce what he is up to, as they begin to venture up the Pachitea, a river known to inhabit headhunters.

Fitzcarraldo offers a journey into a hellish situation where the protagonist faithful believes that he will accomplish an impossible feat in order to pursue a dream, an absurd dream.  Nonetheless, Fitzcarraldo presses the ship forward with death lurking around every corner, as the crew becomes more and more uneasy about the situation.  Eventually, the situation becomes very dangerous, but Fitzcarraldo uses his faith and obsession to reach out to accomplish what  he came do at the disheartening location.

Werner Herzog's project to make Fitzcarraldo is the second time he visited the Peruvian jungles, as he also did in Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972).  This time Herzog displays a similar hardheadedness that Klaus Kinski's character displays in the film, as he had to endure several difficulties such as beginning from scratch after having already shot 40 percent of the film, a plane crash, and border wars.  Nonetheless, Herzog came through with a brilliant cinematic experience that dissects the madness behind the hope and dreams.  Klaus Kinski's performance is simply brilliant, as he will make the audience feel as if it was a documentary.  In the end, this is one of the films that people should not miss, as it offers much to ponder and reflect upon.

DIRECTED BY

COUNTRY

Peru / Germany

Filmography links and data courtesy of