Earlier this week I made a little vow - even writing it down somewhere - that somehow or other I would carve out time to watch Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God and the latest production being streamed by the National Theatre, Small Island, a very highly rated adaptation of a novel by Andrea Levy. In the event I find I have failed to fulfil that vow, owing to a sort of strategic error. I knew I was going to be busy with the Toad, Work, but I didn't reckon on quite how busy. That meant I was never going to find time to watch both ahead of the weekend. And foolishly I opted to view the movie first, essentially because I just couldn't stop myself. I completely forgot there was a deadline on the NT's streaming, and that deadline arrived today. Just now I glanced at the opening segment of Small Island and recognised right away it's my kind of show. Except it now can't be because I just can't fit in in.
I've even had to break up my viewing of Aguirre into four segments watched on four different days. That meant that it wasn't quite as an immersive experience as the first time I watched it years back, but possibly that was a good thing as it's such a powerful and disturbing film that it was a bit of a relief to break it up. But having said that, I found the potent images Herzog conjures up still hypnotise.
Indeed, I think those final shots of the raft spinning on the river, taken over by the small monkeys, with Klaus Kinski the last man standing in the wreckage of his dreams hit me harder today than it did when I first saw it. I think years back I vaguely wondered what Herzog meant by breaking off the story at that point; now I don't bother to think at all, knowing that as with most of the film we're in territory way beyond the rational.
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