In March 2026, a few of our members enjoyed an outing to The Mammoth Cinema, Nottingham.
The tiny Mammoth cinema on Broad Street is a self-proclaimed ‘climate action cinema’ and a ‘hub for sharing ideas about how we can all contribute towards a better, fairer, and greener future - focused around film’.
The German film we attended was Aguirre: Der Zorn Gottes (Aguirre: The Wrath of God).
Made in 1972 this epic historical drama was written and directed by Werner Herzog and is considered a pinnacle of the New German Cinema movement.
Klaus Kinski stars in the title role of ruthless and rebellious Spanish soldier Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of conquistadores down the Amazon River in an ill-fated search for the legendary city of gold, El Dorado.
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Using a minimalist approach to story and dialogue, the film creates a vision of madness and folly, counterpointed by the lush but unforgiving Amazonian jungle. Although loosely based on what is known of the historical Lope de Aguirre, Herzog acknowledged years after the film's release that its storyline is a work of fiction.
"Aguirre, the Wrath of God" is often interpreted as an allegory of imperialist ruin and the futility of human ambition. The film's exploration of madness and obsession resonates with contemporary themes of ecological collapse and expansionist violence.
I think it would be fair to say that it was a very good workout for our German listening skills, (even if there were brief subtitles in English) but we found the scenes of extreme violence and summary executions difficult to watch.