One Paragraph Movie Review: Fitzcarraldo

One hundred and fiftieth film: Fitzcarraldo. What kind of racist, colonial, white-suited, condescending, clinically insane, dicks-on-the-table, pointless machismo Boys Own Adventure bullshit is this, I ask you. Based loosely on a true story and then run through an egotistical Werner Herzog filter just for fun, this is about a white man who thinks opera is transformative trying to raise money to build an opera house in Peru. To get money, he needs access to rubber trees. To get access to rubber trees, he needs to drag a steamboat over a mountain using strong rope and free labour. It is the whitest movie alive, based on the premise that rich guys trying to get even the stupidest thing done in what they consider a savage wilderness should be applauded with a tally ho and a phallic cigar. I mean, even Mick Jagger pulled out, which I imagine can’t be said about many things. Also, if you can build the means to drag a boat over a mountain, JUST BUILD A BOAT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN. I’m disappointed in humanity. One ubiquitous scratchy gramophone out of five.