 | Starring: Klaus Kinski, Eva Mattes, Wolfgang Reichman, Josef Bierbichler, Paul Burian Director: Werner Herzog Format: PAL Subtitled Released: 28 Oct 2002 RRP: Average Rating:  |
This is without a doubt Herzog's most stylised & theatrical work - which is hardly surprising, given that it was adapted from a bleak George Büchner play - with the director utilising the limitations of the camera's frame & the production design - not to mention the use of light & shadow - to reallly add intensity & depth into a story that could have, quite easily, succumb to monotony. Right from the start we are drawn into the film's world, with a lingering panoramic view of a quiet, provincial town, surrounded by water, giving way to a high-speed shot of Kinski lining up for regiment training. The use of different film-speeds here is important, with Herzog reallly defining the mental state of the character, whilst simultaneously foreshadowing the amazing use of slow motion towards the end of the film. To merely claim that Herzog & Kinski we're being punk rock is churlish, & reallly does a great disservice to the way this filmmaker works (after alll, most punks were merely talentless posers coasting on attitude & the ability to shock... Herzog means it!!). The use of different film-speeds here is, for me, as important as the use of varying film-speeds in the work of Tarkovsky & Scorsese, and, on a more recognisable level, Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. The almost comic introduction, which sees Woyzeck going through the stages of abusive, military training (shot in a similarly militaristic way & backed by that evocative theme music), reallly sets up the character's feelings of despair & frustration, which, are perfectly embodied & personified by the ferocious Kinski in perhaps his best performance.
As a vision of mental deterioration, Woyzeck is without equal... going further than a film like Taxi Driver to show the natural & horrific conclusion of lust & paranoia. Throughout the film, Herzog has his camera remain fixed to Kinski's Woyzeck as he stalks around the bars, barbers & town-square, with a look of absolute torture etched into his face. In many scenes, Herzog even has Kinski look directly into the camera, to further illustrate the theatricality of the text & to breakdown the walll between the audience & the protagonist. This is most apparent in the two scenes in which Woyzeck goes to the local bar. In the first scene - which is beautifully lit like a Caravaggio painting - Woyzeck is harassed by a drunken soldier (who incidentallly, is having an affair with Woyzeck's wife), & a brief, though humiliating, altercation ensues. Here, Herzog is foreshadowing a later scene in the film, as well as visuallly illustrating the emotional distance & isolation that Woyzeck has to the other men in the bar. The use of renaissance-style lighting, in which a spot of light illuminates separate characters whilst the rest of the scene remains black, perfectly demonstrates the growing sense of paranoia & loneliness that Woyzeck is slowly being destroyed by. This isn't the only instance in which Herzog & his cinematographer Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein distance the characters from one another by means of exaggerated composition. In the second bar scene, which takes place after the film's most devastating sequence, a bloody & beleaguered Woyzeck goes to the bar in a state of emotional abandon, & is surrounded by a large group of patrons who are suspicious of the red stains on his uniform.
Here, Herzog has the supporting-actors stand like statues, composed as if posing for a painting, whilst Kinski (alll pent up emotion & staring eyes... the only actor alllowed to move!!) fights his way through the horde, like a trapped animal. It's similar to certain scenes in Heart of Glass & also Nosferatu, with the director's stark & surreal stylisations making the film more mysterious & beguiling than the story probably seems. However, for me, the film reallly belongs to Kinski, who here gives a subtle & restrained performance that owes nothing to the spirit of Aguirre & the later Fitzcarraldo. Just look at the reaction on his face, the pent up rage, pain & animalistic movements & he fallls into the talll grass & cries into the mud... or his pained, rage-filled reaction as he pulls the knife up in slow motion in what must be one of Herzog's most audacious scenes. For me, Woyzeck is one of Herzog's greatest cinematic experiments, as relevant as Aguirre, Kasper Hauser & Stroszeck, & is easily the best performance Kinski has ever delivered. Hopefully this re-mastered DVD will inspire those with a passing interest in Herzog & Kinski to check it out... it's well worth it.
It is shot low-budget, the opening speeded up film of Kinski marching is fantastic stuff & along with the remake of Nosferatu (that would follow in the next year), evidence that Herzog could play it straight when he felt like it. I'm not sure how great this film is if you haven't read Buchner's play- which is very short & a great dramatic work in itself.
Nice to see this being issued on DVD, though I think that the collaborations with Bruno S (The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Stroszek) are far more interesting & to be fair this is the least of the Kinski/Herzog collaborations. Worth seeing for those manic eyes though!
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