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COBRA VERDE
Written & Directed by: Werner Herzog, based on the novel The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin.
Produced by: Lucki Stipetic.
Director of Photography: Viktor Ruzicka.
Edited by: Maximiliane Mainka.
Music by: Popol Vuh.
Language: German with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: West Germany. 111 min. Not Rated.
With: Klaus Kinski, José Lewgoy, King Ampaw, Benito Stefanelli & Nana Agyefi Kwame II.

This epic film was Herzog and Klaus Kinski’s last collaboration, and not without good reason as evident from Herzog’s documentary My Best Fiend, about his most frequent leading man. As with Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, the other Herzog/Kinski films in exotic locales with a character absorbed by his environment, Cobra Verde ends up being just as much about the extras as it is about its protagonist (or antagonist, like in Aguirre).

Kinski plays the title character a little differently than in the past films, because Cobra Verde, real name Francisco Manoel da Silva, isn’t (as) crazy or after some mad obsession, like building an opera house in the jungle, like in Fitzcarraldo. He’s a peasant in early 19th century Brazil who gets fired from his job with a gold mining company and becomes a bandit after killing his boss in revenge. A sugar baron hires him as a supervisor of his slaves, but soon discovers da Silva’s really a bandit and has impregnated all three of his daughters. He conspires to send da Silva to reopen slave trading in West Africa at a seaside village still under the rule of a native king. da Silva, of course, doesn’t know what he’s in for; he’s captured by the tribe, almost killed following being black-faced with mud (because, according to tribal law, a white man cannot be killed), and narrowly escapes the king’s grasp.

Madness in a civilization, even as small as this West African kingdom, is manifested by the ruler, who chops off heads at random. More insanity comes as Verde trains the women against their king to the point where many, many topless natives become as bloodthirsty as humanly possible.

As one can imagine, this is another tall tale from Herzog, albeit this time from a novel, with the filmmaker’s interpretation of nature as something wonderful and very cruel. (Herzog once was quoted as saying he loved nature, but “against his better judgment.”) His visuals, filmed on the Western African coast, are as original and strikingly designed as ever.

Kinski takes on his somewhat complex character with the gusto he’s famous for (his eyes, of course, are part of it – he acts just as much if not more intensely with them than Pacino). Yet the film lacks urgency, which could be felt in almost every frame of Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, or Woyzeck. Herzog’s documentary-style focus on the natives is uneven with his narrative on da Silva; it’s almost as if he can’t decide whether he’s more mesmerized and curious about what he doesn’t know, the Africans, or da Silva. This causes some incoherency, which is disappointing from a director who usually merges documentary into fiction so effortlessly. Only when both sides come together, like when da Silva is prisoner or when he’s training the Africans to fight, does he conjure his best scenes.

This said, there are many haunting moments in the film that rank as the director’s best, especially the final images, which speak to not only the closing of one of the most unique collaborations between actor/director in cinema, but one that recalls Fitzcarraldo, as da Silva tries to push a boat out to sea, only this time without any dreams or madness. Jack Gattanella
March 21, 2007