Werner Herzog is the reigning champ of impossible real-life adventures undertaken in the name of cinema. And this masterpiece is a backbreaking epic that ecstatically treads the line between a portrait of madness and a genuine expression of obsession. FITZCARRALDO fictionalizes the mad, true-life mission of South Amer- ican rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald to establish an opera house in the Peruvian jungle – which can only be accomplished by hauling a gigantic river boat over a mountain. No special effects here – this is the real deal, with the impossible results executed before your eyes.