Cobra Verde (Widescreen)

Good Movie full of lush scenery and color about a bandit who beomes a slave trader on the coast of Africa, starring an out of control Klaus Kinski, As Herzog said Kinski brought something offensive to this film that the director didn't like.. Herzog would have liked to have shot the final scene first to drain Kinski and settle him down. as Herzog said, the film is unfinished and there are shots he'd rather take out. I didn't get the topless native girls singing and the hunchback dwarf cantina scene but it's a Herzog film it's a grand metaphor for something! you don't see much happen til a wide eyed raving Kinski leads the amazon warriors to battle but the end result is disappointing check out how fast a 60 year old plus Klaus can move tho.

This is a haunting film about slavery (based loosely on a Bruce Chatwin novel), but unlike other films on the topic it doesn't actually denounce slavery, working instead within the mental framework of the 19th century. Not a 'politically correct' approach, of course, as director Herzog cheerfully acknowledges, but an historically faithful one.

Herzog is concerned with authenticity when portraying African cultures, and this may be one of the most realistic depictions of colonial Africa ever committed to film. Interestingly, the actor who plays the King of Dahomey is a real African tribal king.

Klaus Kinski plays the title role with a crazed intensity which according to Herzog mirrors the fact that he was slipping over the edge in real life. Kinski's character Cobra Verde longs "to go forth from here to another world", but in fact he is already in another world - Herzog's camera captures the sense of strangeness and mystery in each landscape the film passes through.

In many ways 'Cobra Verde' is like an extended dreamscape, hyponotic yet full of surprising juxtapositions. While not Herzog's most coherent film, in terms of stylised cinematography it ranks up there with his best. It is a work of art that demands attentive viewing.

Contrary to the myth that whites are responsible for the African slave trade, the film also acknowledges the historical reality that slavery was practiced extensively by Arabs and Africans (not that whites didn't actively participate in it, of course). Herzog discusses some of these issues in the director's commentary track, which is interesting in its own right.

COBRA VERDE marked the fiinal collaboration (not counting the director's elegiac documentary MEIN LIEBSTER FEIND) between Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski. It's one of their most haunting works, quietly epic in its scope, fueled by gorgeous cinematography and and an enigmatic lead performance. Herzog's commentary is wonderful. COBRA VERDE is one of those films I find myself rewatching in bits, if only to recapture for a moment the funereal magic of a lost world.