It was shown in Tallinn Black Nights Film festival and the makers of the film were there too and provided some background. Apparently this movie was inspired by Herzog's "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" and the source material which got the entire project going was found from some diary of a conquistador which Herzog had suggested to read. Like many works of the great German director, this one was also very much an extreme film-making project, with a very small crew and filmed on location on the slopes of the volcano. The result, while maybe lacking "Aguirre's" emotional intensity, is nevertheless excellent and beautiful.
Pretty much the entire movie follows three characters testing their resolve in extreme conditions. Historical dramas usually require vast and elaborate sets to bring the viewer hundreds of years back in time. This one doesn't, as wild nature provides the backdrop and it hasn't changed a lot over time.
The main protagonist in here is Diego de Ordaz, one of the forgotten characters of La Conquista. Cortez has given him the task of reaching the top of the Popocatépetl, which during most of the movie seems like an absurd challenge but it does have a practical goal which we find out only at the end credits. In Ordaz we see a man who has illusions of grandeur, who wants to go down in history as somebody who did his great part in bringing down the Aztec kingdom. Given that there was a very limited number of conquistadors in the Americas and those few hundred men tried to bring down vast empires and even succeeded at this... it seems that the only thing which sometimes kept them going was a belief in some kind of divine providence, of succeeding against all odds. It looks close to madness and yet it produced results. This movie studies the mental state of these men very convincingly while not judging them, and this is its main virtue.
Pretty much the entire movie follows three characters testing their resolve in extreme conditions. Historical dramas usually require vast and elaborate sets to bring the viewer hundreds of years back in time. This one doesn't, as wild nature provides the backdrop and it hasn't changed a lot over time.
The main protagonist in here is Diego de Ordaz, one of the forgotten characters of La Conquista. Cortez has given him the task of reaching the top of the Popocatépetl, which during most of the movie seems like an absurd challenge but it does have a practical goal which we find out only at the end credits. In Ordaz we see a man who has illusions of grandeur, who wants to go down in history as somebody who did his great part in bringing down the Aztec kingdom. Given that there was a very limited number of conquistadors in the Americas and those few hundred men tried to bring down vast empires and even succeeded at this... it seems that the only thing which sometimes kept them going was a belief in some kind of divine providence, of succeeding against all odds. It looks close to madness and yet it produced results. This movie studies the mental state of these men very convincingly while not judging them, and this is its main virtue.