Cobra Verde (1987)

Klaus Kinski in all his craziness cannot save this visually stunning, but ultimately boring movie from Werner Herzog. I have seen travel films with more substance, and there is very little meaningful dialog. This plays like a film on African customs, with Kinski just happening to be in almost every scene. The story lacks cohesion, many scenes go on for way too long, and there is zero character development other than Klaus Kinski. Though it portends to be an epic like "Aguirre" or "Fitzcarraldo", it is not even close to the entertainment value of those films. "Cobra Verde" is little more than a string of exotic visuals. - MERK

Fmovies: Watching a Herzog (or Kurosawa or Tarkovkiy among others) movie, gives you the feeling that awards and the critics reception don't mean a thing and the evidence or the reason why i start my review with these words is Herzog's "Cobra Verde" (1987).

• Francisco Manoel da Silva (Klaus Kinski) is a debauched Brazilian rancher who reluctantly goes to work at a gold mining company after his ranch is ruined by drought. When he discovers that he is being financially exploited, he murders his boss and goes on the lam to pursue a career as an outlaw. He becomes the notorious Cobra Verde (Green Snake), the most vicious bandit of the "sertao".

• The 5th of the five collaborations between HERZOG-KINSKI which by all means are on the same level as KUROSAWA - MIFUNE, MARTY - DE NIRO, HITCHCOCK - STEWART, FINCHER - PITT to mention some, is one of the finest and most underrated movie i've seen from the 80's.

• "Master" HERZOG does his thing as we're used to his "freestyle story development" and style, while Klaus Kinski as Cobra Verde (Manoel da Silva) delivers a superb performance, to put it in a more conventional way, in this movie you'll meet the peak of KINSKI's acting.

• Cobra Verde is a controversial movie about slavery, perjury, madness, immorale etc. etc. This one belongs more on the group of Herzog's "FITZCARALDO", "AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GODS", "STORSZEK" than let's say "NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE" OR "VOYZECK" just to mention some. It's composed by a rich group of element starting from cinematography (The original cinematographer THOMAS MAUCH, had to walk out of the project due to KINSKI clashes) great acting by Kinski, great direction, the screenplay is on a level, but frankly it doesn't matter on a Herzog movie. It is really a misfortune that this movie went on unnoticed by the awards and it didn't end up where it belonged.

• It wasn't liked by Critics when it was released, probably due to its controversial subject (REMEMBER A 1969 MOVIE CALLED "BURN ! a.k.a. QUEIMADA starring the GREAT Marlon Brando).

• I HOPE that MORE PEOPLE WILL WATCH THIS movie AND NOT ONLY HERZOG OR KINSKI FANS.

'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.

Cobra Verde fmovies. 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 A

Herzog's films are not for everyone, but everyone should be in awe of what went into these films. Gone are the days when a director could come into a project with a few hundred grand, shoot on location with a cast of thousands, and achieve something that is so authentic, yet still maintaining such beautiful film quality. This is no Blair Witch Project. The cameras don't wobble to the point of nausea.

Cobra Verde is not a politically correct film, the dialogue and plot, as usual, are bit quirky. It's a German film, and I've come to expect a bit of quirkiness from German films. This doesn't stop me from appreciating Klaus Kinsky's performance and the authentic performances of the supporting cast. Klaus for me is the William Shatner of German Cinematography. Take that whatever way you will... he's the man.

What I get most from these films is a sense of the grandeur and presence of nature. No one has ever captured the haunting feel of such locations. I keep shaking my head in awe. Where does he find these places? If I were a tourist I wish I had this knack for finding places that so well exemplify the wonders of mother earth. Real or historically accurate? Who cares!!! These are beautiful films.

Director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinsky did many films together. They were all spectacular because of Herzogs direction and they all had an intensely insane looking leading man because of Kinskys solid performances. Cobra Verde was their last collaboration together because three years after making this film Kinsky died. He left a great legacy as an actor and Cobra Verde is a prime example of that.

The story is about Francisco Manuel (aka the Bandit of Cobra Verde) a bandit who goes from town to town looking for a strange new world. Basically everyone fears him because he is untamable, like a wild beast. One day, he gets a job taking care of slaves in a Sugar Cane field and he gets to live in the same house as his boss, the owner of the fields. Cobra Verde being the bandit that he is has his way with not one, but all three of the bosses daughters and gets them pregnant. The boss, looking for a way to get back at Cobra Verde for what he did, sends him on a mission to Africa to buy more slaves. Of course the bosses real intentions are to get Cobra Verde killed in the journey. What they don't know is that Cobra Verde is not a person who easily gives up and hes a tough cookie to kill. And so begins Cobra Verdes journey into the hot, deadly and colorful depths of Africa.

This movie, like many of Herzogs films is a journey into the unknown. I love how Herzog does that in all his films. Transporting us to strange places that truly exist, but are so wondrous and amazing that they have a surreal dreamlike feel to them. On Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre we went deep into the Amazonian Jungle, but on Cobra Verde we get to see the heart and soul of Africa. Once the movie gets to Africa (on its second half) things get really interesting and you will find yourselves completely immersed in the African culture. From the injustices of slavery to the savagery of African tribes. It was all new, strange and different to me because Herzog really went in there and found incredible real life locations in which to shoot Cobra Verde. Its as if Herzog searches out these incredible places, dives deep into them, and then brings them back to us via his films for us to enjoy.

This movie is epic in scale and it shows in every single frame of film. We get hundreds of extras in many scenes. One particular scene stood out and its the one in which Kinsky trains hundreds of African women all dressed in their war attire and marching while singing their war songs. It was fantastic and epic and I loved every second of it. Not only that but its even more amazing when I learned that this huge looking film only cost two million dollars to make! I was unaware that a film of such grand scale could be made with so little money. Hollywood could learn a thing or two from Herzogs style of film-making.

Klaus Kinsky once again turns in an intense performance as the titular character. He certainly goes in a journey from being a bandit to becoming the king of an African tribe. I really got to like his character because he is a guy who literally does what he wants and has complete freedom over what to do with his life. Nobody tells this guy what to do, but once he sets his sites on achieving a goal (and its usually something pretty daunting) he goes all the way to make it happen.

Even when he accepts the responsibilities and challenges involved in going to Africa and taking slaves back to Brazil considering that slavery is almost completely abolished, he does it with a sure hand, ready to face whatever situations life might hurl at him. A