Fitzcarraldo

What a truly bizarre experience. The story has dimensions of the absurd woven throughout, with a premise—an obsessed opera lover will go to any lengths to achieve his dreams—that sounds like the setup for a very weird and possibly not particularly funny joke. Much of the proceedings comes across as some sort of illusion or dream sequence, especially with the inclusion of a cast of characters—mostly in the early scenes—who all seem to have been selected for the grotesque nature of their appearance, giving the film a Grand Guingnol vibe. On a superficial level, one may be tempted to see this story as simply a rendering of one man’s madness or folly, but taking a broader view leads one to see this as, perhaps, a metaphor for the folly of the introduction—indeed, imposition—of Western European ways and ideas into places and landscapes and among people where it is completely alien and not at all likely to succeed. Make of that what you will. This film offers plenty of food for thought, an interesting (to say the least) performance from Klaus Kinski as the titular odd bird, and the spectacle of a steamship being hauled over a mountain, yet I think ultimately it is just too weird for the average viewer.