In the documentary 'My Best Fiend' Herzog says that when directing Kinski in this film he found him 'uncontrollable'. I was surprised when watching it to sense that Kinski was burnt out and actually seemed too old for his role.
The film opens with a Brazilian folk musician starting to sing us the 'Ballad of Cobra Verde'. Then we enter the story proper with an extreme close-up of Kinski's forehead which flows without a cut into a panoramic shot of an arid wasteland dotted with innumerable skeletons of cattle. Herzog's use of landscape in his films is as amazing as ever.
Unfortunately after this very promising start the film loses its way. We next see Kinski labouring in a mine (apparently to pay the debts on his ranch); cheated of his wages he becomes a bandit; then he's taken up by a sugar planter because he can control slaves; he makes the planter's daughters pregnant and is sent on a suicidal mission to buy slaves from a mad African king. Surprisingly he succeeds and overthrows the king using an army of women but is cheated when Brazil outlaws slavery. He dies attempting to escape to sea once more.
As you can see this plot is unremarkable and not really enough for a two-hour running time. Too often the film stops for local colour, especially in the African sequences when the scenes of local pageantry at the mad king's court seem to go on forever.
There isn't really anything we haven't seen in previous Herzog/Kinski collaborations (obsessive dreamer seeks another world which is as flawed as the 'real' world, if not more so), Kinski seems tired and really can't carry the film alone. By any other standards this is not a bad film, but from this partnership it's a bit of a disappointment.
The film opens with a Brazilian folk musician starting to sing us the 'Ballad of Cobra Verde'. Then we enter the story proper with an extreme close-up of Kinski's forehead which flows without a cut into a panoramic shot of an arid wasteland dotted with innumerable skeletons of cattle. Herzog's use of landscape in his films is as amazing as ever.
Unfortunately after this very promising start the film loses its way. We next see Kinski labouring in a mine (apparently to pay the debts on his ranch); cheated of his wages he becomes a bandit; then he's taken up by a sugar planter because he can control slaves; he makes the planter's daughters pregnant and is sent on a suicidal mission to buy slaves from a mad African king. Surprisingly he succeeds and overthrows the king using an army of women but is cheated when Brazil outlaws slavery. He dies attempting to escape to sea once more.
As you can see this plot is unremarkable and not really enough for a two-hour running time. Too often the film stops for local colour, especially in the African sequences when the scenes of local pageantry at the mad king's court seem to go on forever.
There isn't really anything we haven't seen in previous Herzog/Kinski collaborations (obsessive dreamer seeks another world which is as flawed as the 'real' world, if not more so), Kinski seems tired and really can't carry the film alone. By any other standards this is not a bad film, but from this partnership it's a bit of a disappointment.