Highly Overrated But Still Good

As Good As It Gets

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Cobra Verde is best known as the final collaboration between director Werner Herzog and star actor Klaus Kinski. These two mavericks had come together explosively several times before and, in the process, created some fascinating works of cinema. It was here, however, that the Herzog/Kinski partnership finally and irreparably hit the skids, with Kinski behaving on-set in a manner too negative, even by his alarming standards. This last film is generally considered to be the weakest of the five collaborations and, in fairness, this is not an unreasonable verdict as the plot dynamics and central character are less interesting than in previous films. Having said that, it's still hardly a poor film in a general sense and still has quite a few things about it to recommend.Its story focuses on the 19th century African slave trade. After impregnating all of his plantation boss's daughters, a bandit is sent from Brazil to West Africa to buy slaves in an enterprise his boss fully expects will result in his death. It doesn't quite work out that way and he becomes very involved with an African tribal war instead.Much here is similar to the other Herzog/Kinski films that preceded it. It is set in a historical period, it has a central character who is an outsider with a hint of madness and it features documentary realism in its use of indigenous non-actors in support roles. The location photography is one of the definite strong points and Kinski is always interesting to watch, although in this role he is perhaps more difficult to like than usual; after all he is a slave trader, which is hardly the most sympathetic job title. He and his fellow white men display casual racism throughout, although the film doesn't really much delve into the rights and wrongs of slavery very much and is more a character study of a man in the middle of this scenario. I think the main problem is that the story doesn't really give us much to work with or care too much about. The film, as a result works more in places, with some individual scenes sticking in the mind; most notably for me was the appearance of the 'nuns' – a sequence where several African girls chant and dance in a very captivating manner. There are other interesting moments sprinkled throughout but Cobra Verde somehow doesn't work as well as a whole piece and remains interesting but flawed.

Plot: A Brazilian bandit is hired by a plantation owner but impregnates his three daughters and in punishment is sent on a suicide mission to re- open the West African slave trade.Director Werner Herzog has a tendency to return to the same themes and character types over and over again. Here, much like in AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD, we have the story of a megalomaniac who exceeds his orders and embarks on a dangerous journey that ends in insanity. Here the details change: Brazilian slaver rather than Conquistador, Dahomey rather than Peru, Amazons rather than the Amazon. The usual grotesques return, from insane kings to hunchbacks and sacred snakes, as does Klaus Kinski, in the lead role again and going madder by the minute. Reams of praise could be written for Kinski but a single look at the poster tells all. The contrast between those too-blue eyes, the hay-blond hair, the jawline big as houses and the insanity in the eyes, the way his features look scraped out, the extraordinary contortions of facial muscles. He has the face of a gargoyle and the taut energy of a cobra. You cannot help but be impressed.Herzog gives him plenty to do. Wandering Brazil in a robe and rifle, with the poise of a saint. Walking through a garden of flamingos shoeless (he doesn't trust shoes). Watching a slave have his arm sucked into the machinery of a sugar plantation and pulped. Marching through an army of Amazonian women warriors, kicking snakes and striking poses. Finally, the last scene, on a beach, needs to be watched - not read about.The whole thing is shot in Herzog's favoured naturalistic documentary style, the music is inseparable from the images, the acting is generally of high quality, the fug of atmosphere is thick enough to cut, the alien landscape (Brazilian slave forts, African castles) bewitching, the madness keeps on growing (Kinski in blackface was particularly funny/scary) and the whole thing builds, inevitably, to the moment where the world overwhelms Kinski and destroys him.

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

For the last time, and not without likely good reason as evidence from Werner Herzog's own documentary My Best Fiend about his most frequent leading man Klaus Kinski, as well as from this specific production (the original cinematographer left after some vicious fights), Herzog put his trust into Kinski as a force to be reckoned with as far as leading an epic film where atmosphere and the nature of the society trumps plot. As with Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, the other Herzog/Kinski films in exotic locales with a character absorbed by the environment around him, Cobra Verde ends up being just as much about the extras as it is as its protagonist (or antagonist as it was with Aguirre). The visuals for Herzog, and capturing this African coast as the documentarian he is, are as original and strikingly designed as ever, and this time he even puts in the theme of class into the picture, with satisfactory results.Kinski plays the title character a little different than in the past films, because, perhaps, 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. He's a peasant in Brazil who gets fired from his work in a gold mining company, and becomes a bandit after killing his boss. He goes from there to work for a sugar baron (Jose Lewgoy), who hires him as a supervisor, but soon finds out he's really a bandit, and impregnated his three daughters. The baron has a meeting with a few others and a plan is hatched- send da Silva to re-open slave trading in West Africa, a seaside village with many potential slaves (not tapped in ten years since none white have come back) still under the rule of a native king. Da Silva, of course, doesn't know what he's in for, and soon he's captured by the tribes-people, almost killed following being black-faced with mud (because, according to tribe law, they cannot kill a white man), and narrowly escapes the King's grasp, then after leading hundreds of women trained for battle for the slave trade, becomes the king himself.As one can imagine, this is another tall tale from Herzog, albeit this time from a novel, and it's supplanted in the filmmaker's interpretation of nature as something wonderful and very cruel (Herzog once was quoted as saying that he loved nature, but "against his better judgment). First it's the nature of a gold mining area, with lots and lots of mud, then with the exotic areas of Brazil where there is a lushness that inform the moral abandon Cobra Verde has in having his way with any woman he wants (one just randomly in a village early on, a little awkwardly). Then, most crucially, with the African tribe, and the castle that is meant to be da Silva's hold-up is in shambles when he arrives. The tribe itself first gets represented by an ex-slave that accompanies da Silva around, almost like a ghost with stories to tell, and then through showing physical things being done like the procession of carrying objects, sacks, in very long lines. Also the manifestation of madness in a civilization, even as small as this West African tribe, by how the king runs things, chopping off heads whenever, and with one slave who's own eyes are reminiscent of Kinski's. Then even more madness comes as Kinski's seemingly calm, observant stare is broken as he trains the women against the king- many, many topless natives who become as bloodthirsty as humanly possible- but then into one last movement of madness that da Silva comes to realize, which is slavery itselfAll of this is presented with Herzog in intriguing form, especially visually in symmetry: a line of slaves on a beach waving flags or in seeing the red head-covers the women wear during training crossing paths, or in just getting an intense close-up of Kinski's face. And Kinski takes on this somewhat complex character with the gusto he's famous for (his eyes, of course, are part of it with, who acts just as much if not more intensely with them than Pacino). Yet there's also a lack of urgency, unlike where it could be felt in almost every frame of Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo or Woyzeck. The message about slavery towards the end becomes preachy, except maybe for how it relates to da Silva with him not being able to escape his own fate. It also doesn't help that Herzog's focus from documentary form on the natives to narrative on da Silva doesn't work because of the storytelling-shift based on Herzog's interest in one side or another as opposed to coherency. This said, there are many haunting moments in the film that rank up 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 calls back Fitzcarraldo, as da Silva tries to push a boat out to sea, only this time without any dreams or madness.