Cobra Verde

I have to admit the plot of "Cobra Verde" was less impressive and coherent than I anticipated (or hoped…) to be, but it doesn't matter all that much, because this is purely Klaus Kinski's movie. Even though the status and reputation of this movie is too often overshadowed by reports of conflicts & hostility between the director and the lead star, Werner Herzog still undeniably brings some sort of homage to Kinski here. During a lot of scenes, the camera just purposelessly follows him around and there's an incredibly large amount of shots that simply show his facial expressions, and more particularly his insanity-filled eyes, in extreme close-ups. Much more than any film of his that I've seen so far, "Cobra Verde" represents Kinski's most obsessive performance. The lovely title refers to the nickname of Francisco Manuel Da Silva, obviously played by Kinski. At the beginning of the film Da Silva is an ordinary early 19th Century Brazilian farmer mourning over the loss of a beloved one, but in no time he promotes himself into a relentless bandit. His charisma and fearful influence on the locals have him spotted by a sugar-plantation tycoon, who engages Cobra Verde to guard his slaves. But when he impregnates not just one but all three daughters of his employer, Cobra Verde is exiled to Africa to recruit a new slaves and deport them to Brazil. This is meant to be a certain death mission, as the destination – the kingdom of Dahomey – is at war with its neighbors, forbidding slave trade and its king is possibly the one person on earth madder than Da Silva himself. King Adahee (who, for example, wants all dogs killed because they conspire against humans at night) commands to execute Cobra Verde but he escapes, joins the rebellion and trains the fighting skills of an army of over a 1.000 topless women! The screenplay, adapted from a novel by the acclaimed writer Bruce Chatwin, is slightly disappointing because the study on colonialism is rather clichéd, one-dimensional and shallow. The slaves wear chains around their necks, yet the walk around singing and smiling to the crazed white man. The multiple sequences involving mass activity, for example Kinski training the warrior women and a cross-country human telegraph line, as well as the portrayal of typically African rites (dancing and a lot singing) are visually staggering but admittedly they add very little substance. "Cobra Verde" is, as extendedly stated above, a purely brilliant one-man Kinski show. From the scenes where he dominantly arrives in Africa, wearing a grotesque Napoleonesque hat, to the unsettling climax in which he vainly attempts to escapes from the continent as well as from his own personal demons, Kinski is one indescribably fascinating & compelling individual.

'Cobra Verde' is a really great movie!!I was surprised because i never hear this film praised by critics.I've been an avid Herzog fan for years and even after all these years his films still have the power to shock me. there are many bizarre and stunning images in this film.It's really a fascinating movie,and would be good to use in a world history class.Klaus kinski is really great in the title role ,and Herzog's trademark visuals have never been better.Some of the visuals I found to be very disturbing,One scene in particular that is straight out of a jodorowsky film. The film has a very powerful ending that will have great impact on anyone who likes films.See it even if your not into herzog's movies.

Sarcastic humor for fans of the darkside: Surprise surprise. Herzog makes a film about a man consumed by his dreams and destroyed by the conspiracies of world he lives in. And in a complete reversal from his usual light hearted comedy roles, Klaus Kinski protrays a madman getting madder.

If you liked Agirre or Fitzcaraldo, and would have liked a larger cast including Amazon warrior girls from Africa and National Geo graphic dancing then by all means see this. Warning: no light hearted romance, cute chimps or talking to the animals here. Surreal, dark, morality story with great acting and the best one liner in Herzog's repertoire while watching amazonian spear dancing (are you listening Joe Bob Briggs?)

Who are these women? They are our future murderesses.

In principle, I would feel tempted to give it only a six. Except that then there are "buts"... But there is Werner Herzog. But there is the sociopathically brilliant Klaus Kinski. But there is that unforgettable final scene. But there is the historic memory behind the story. But there are silent scenes of sheer contemplation. But there is the image of the fortress of Elmina (originally Ajudá, or Ouidah), that lingers long after you have seen the movie. But there is the amazing sensuality of all those female-warriors in beautiful war outfits. But there is that young girl singing near the end, the lavish, teasing, provocative, self-assured look on her face, the expression in her eyes, the crystalline/aggressive sound of her voice. And 'but' there is the music. If you have read Bruce Chatwin's novel, you will be able to add up some details to the story line. The horror of the Kingdom of Daomé, for instance, is far from what BC described himself - and actually far from what history books tell us. In fact, you could build endless stories inside this movie. That's what makes it so good: all the things missing. It could have been a better achievement, but for all it's worth, it's really not the kind of movie you're likely to forget after a few weeks!

Cobra Verde is the last time Kinski went mad for Herzog. He probably continued to be a raving lunatic to his end, but this was the last time something meaningful was siphoned through his madness. Herzog said that after the film was wrapped, Kinski was spent, he had given all he had to give. Kinski struggled with his delusions of grandeur in his own film Paganini, but for all intents and purposes this is the swansong. Strangely and fittingly this is reflected in the character he plays. There's colorful grim adventure in it but at its best Cobra Verde is a coming of age drama.

This slavetrader incarnation of Aguirre has matured, the waters are stiller and run deeper, he's more ambiguous, as though the delusions of grandeur have been melted away by advancing age and we're looking at a broken human being who is probably past the point of being able to be made whole again, a man who went mad at some point or other but has made his peace with his madness.

Here's a man who is a confessed criminal but not a raving monomaniac anymore like Aguirre or Fitzcarraldo; now he's the romantic who yearns "to cross over to another world". Perfect. Here's closure to a trilogy of sorts about different characters who could very well be the same person in different times.

Cobra Verde does that, it crosses over to another world, it's a glance stolen over the bulwark of a boat off the African coast and through the bushes of the savanna and now we're peering at a small village of huts and cabins and wild black men are dancing a feverish dance around a fire, they're waving sticks around them, bodies shining with sweat, their movements odious and harmonical with some of the spasmodic suspended quality of a coiled spring, and then Klaus Kinski has his face painted black by figures with horned headpieces, his face is framed by unruly blonde hair so that he looks like a demon figure straight from Japanese mythology - for the black man the devil is white. Cobra Verde is all that, it's like an ethnographic document of something that may be even partly fictional yet feels wholy true in its savagery and otherworldliness, of something that was lost and now found again, it's not Discovery Channel's version of black Africa, it's like something straight from the pages of a Joseph Conrad novel, a bit sensationalist but also very mystical, with traces of something at once horrible and wonderful.

We get echoes of Daniel Plainview at the beginning. Cobra Verde is digging for gold in Brazil, he's ruthless and vengeful. We enter an empty bar in a small pueblo owned by a midget and we get discussions about lost paradises on earth where the snow is light like feathers. Cobra Verde ambushes a palanquin and a mysterious black girl in a white dress gets out and dances a sensual dance.

Now we're on a boat off the African shore looking at a deserted slave fortress through an eyeglass, inside the fort a tattered survivor of the black militia of the fort cackles mysteriously and we enter rooms filled with bats and crabs. The movie is very stylized so far, when Kinski makes an appearance in the plaza of the pueblo with his poncho and a rifle, he looks like he stepped back into a spaghetti western for a shootout. But there are also residues of mystery and nameless rage and violence that seem to come from a different place, destruction and abandonment, and the first hour of Cobra Verde is among Herzog's finest work, because all that is kept just out of sight.

The African part of Cobra Verde is less, and maybe that is all Cobra Verde does wrong, that the mystery is peeled back and we're looking at things too much. We're looking at things too much like we're a visitor in a local tribe and the tribesmen are performing dances and chants for our benefit, they wave flags and stage fights, they crowd rooms and walk in lines. When the jungle showers down wooden arrows upon Kinski and his group in Aguirre, the attackers remain unseen. Here they're rushing out to meet us.

It's all a bit like Herzog's tribal docu Woodabe - Herdsmen of the Sun with a Kinski protagonist and a little bit of plot.

Another plot line is invoked at the last minute to make order out of the wild, something about the brother of the local king (one of the most fascinating movie characters of the decade, a man who constantly puts on a show for his people, he's parts cheeky badass, pompous buffoon, and stark raving mad) wanting to usurp the throne, and Cobra Verde leads his insurrectionist amazon army, but it's all a bit scattershot. The protagonist has matured but Cobra Verde the movie lacks Aguirre's the singleminded forward- pushing sense of a journey into the heart of darkness.

Like with most of his movies, Herzog saves the best for last - another unforgettable image of a desperate Kinski, now the alonest of the alone, trying to tug a piroge into the ocean to get away from that godforsaken African shore. A crippled black boy afflicted with polio walks towards him across the shore, then pauses and turns. Here's a tragic man alone at his end now, an outcast beyond help or reprieve or even vengeance, and now he's truly ready to cross over to another world. This is heightened reality, it is Herzog's ecstatic truth, or in his words, sometimes truth comes out clearer out of fabrication.