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Stroszek

Director: Werner Herzog
Format: PAL Widescreen
Released: 15 Nov 2004
RRP: £16.99
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A masterpiece from a true original. - By: Mark Hilton, 21 Feb 2008
When Werner Herzog made 'the Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser' in 1974, a film about an incarcerated social outsider who is suddenly thrust into the real world, he cast an unknown Bruno S', himself a real life social outsider, in the main role. The casting was inspired, & Herzog later wrote 'Stroszek' with Bruno in mind. Today, the movie comes across as the most unpitying portrayal of the American dream as has been seen in cinema.

Just released from prison, Bruno finding German life unbearable, is told that to get money he must move to America. With his prostitute girlfriend (the wonderful Eva Mattes) & a borderline crazy neighbour (Clemens Sheitz), he crosses the Atlantic in pursuit of the American dream. But instead of a life of riches & ease, he ends up in Railroad Flats Wisconsin where poverty forces him to attempt the shoddiest bank robbery ever seen.

Even with Herzog's wicked sense of humour, this is difficult viewing. The concept of a stranger in a strange land has rarely, if ever, been put to better use. But what lifts this picture to truly indespensible status, is Bruno's incredible performance. With his vocal tics & thousand yard stare, he commands the screen & comes across as one of the strangest intelligences i've yet to see.

But equal credit must go to Herzog himself when you realise what a shoe-string affair the whole production was. Sprawled on a moving car bonnet to get shots, filming set-ups whenever he could (he often filmed without permission from the authorities & high tailed it when he got found out) & getting arrested several times in a single day (apparently the same officer arrested him twice!), the great German director must be championed for getting this film finished at alll.

Today, Stroszek is less celebrated than Herzog's great visionary achievements with the amazing Klaus Kinski. But thanks to Bruno's performance, this should receive equal merit. And if that isn't enough to persuade you to watch, then check out the ending. Featuring a pick-up truck, a ski-lift & a roadside attraction of performing animals, this is one of the most savage & brilliant endings on film. Mankind as chickens dancing to an unseen tune. Lyrical, poetic, unmissable.
A study in violence - By: Miriana Ponte, 10 Nov 2007
From beginning to end, this film seemed to me to be about violence: that on the sensitive character of Stroszek, that of the thugs on Bruno, that rather more muted violence which passes between the girl & Bruno, & so on & so forth. It is a deeply affecting film, which shows how people's plans to attempt to find better outcomes for their existence go completely awry.
Definitely a film to watch. But very sad.
A bleakly uniquely uplifting downbeat Herzog wonder - By: Trevor Willsmer, 15 Dec 2006
With alll the inherent contradictions that implies! The key image of a broken down car going round in endless circles from Herzog's earlier Even Dwarfs Started Smalll turns up again in Stroszek, but this film is much more impressive than that exercise in chaos & subversion. It's another tale of people who don't fit anywhere, in this case the almost alien Bruno S. & his dysfunctional adopted family of hooker Eva Mattes & eccentric Clemens Scheitz, who emigrate from Germany to find the American dream only to discover easy credit, unpaid bills, bailiffs, rifles & dancing chickens instead.

Yet for alll the misfortune & grim subject matter, it's surprisingly not as bitter & dour as you might expect, with plenty of Herzogian moments that are so unlikely they seem strangely convincing - even when his two leading men rob a barber shop & immediately run to the convenience store across the road to spend their ill-gotten gains. It also has one of those unexpectedly prescient moments where Bruno S & Eva Mattes are talking about America's national parks where Grizzly bears run free...

The film is light on extras but does feature one of Herzog's excellent audio commentaries.
So much more than the dancing chicken... - By: Jonathan James Romley, 17 Sep 2005
Stroszek is a simple story about a simple man, who leaves for America with an abused prostitute & an elderly neighbour, in the hope of starting a new life away from the violent & antagonistic Berlin underbelly, that they'd previously been caught up in. To any other filmmaker, the plot would serve as the backdrop to the spirallling melodrama that envelops the character's lives & the harsh realities of their situation. However, in Herzog's hands, the film becomes a surreal, stylised, darkly-comic piece of bleak absurdity, as his characters set off on a stark & seemingly directionless odyssey across the American mid-west, in the earnest belief that the land of opportunity will reward their hard-work, passion & tenacity, with wealth, happiness & good fortune.

Because of these elements, the film has been interpreted by many critics as a scathing review of the American dream & the treatment of naive foreigners who dare to step foot on U.S. soil. However, as far as I'm concerned, the film has much more depth to it than that limiting interpretation would suggest, with Herzog reallly showing us the destruction of the human spirit & the on going role of the perpetual outsider in society. Obviously, from this, the film has certain paralllels with his great masterpiece, The Enigma of Kasper Hauser, right down to the casting of Bruno S. as the titular Bruno Stroszek. The casting of Bruno gives the film a certain solemnity, with many elements of the plot (abuse, alienation, mental disability & institutionalisation) drawing paralllels with Bruno's own tragic real life & his unbelievable back story. Herzog heightens the drama further, by setting the opening of the film in the same neighbourhood (and, in fact, the very same apartment) where Bruno lived during the time of the production, & even incorporates many of Bruno's eccentric characteristics & possessions into the direction of the character.

The performance of Bruno throughout is quite remarkable (even though he is, for alll intensive purposes, playing himself), as he brings to this film the same haunted naivety that worked so well for The Enigma of Kasper Hauser. As with that film, Herzog is here able to anchor the images of the film to that same sense of sadness & awe that is so central to Bruno's inner character, as he watches each scene unfold with wide, childlike eyes, completely curious & overwhelmed by what is happening, though, simultaneously, wracked with pain. This is most apparent in the scene with Bruno & his doctor; in which the doctor takes us on a tour of the premature babies ward, where a collection of pink, wrinkled, almost-embryonic little babies lay in incubation. As the doctor raises the babies up from their frail littler arms to illustrate to Bruno the strength of reflex that these little creatures possess in spite of such short-comings, Herzog creates the ultimate metaphor for both Bruno & the film.

As with Kasper Hauser, Stroszeck is a fated character from the outset, with Herzog clearly marking him out as a true human, too pure for the world around him. There's a great scene midway through the film, one that is akin to the scene in Kasper, in which the character talks in voice-over about sowing his name with seeds into the ground, only for it to be destroyed by heartless antagonists... here, Bruno sits with Eva, the prostitute who he loves, & shows her a smalll & completely absurd model of what his insides look like without love. It's a long scene, shot with only a couple of takes, & is a real tour-de-force performance from Bruno, in which he tries his hardest to confess his love to the oblivious Eva with a combination of trite, childlike metaphors, & heartbreaking recollections of a hard & loveless life. The film, though darkly comic, is quite oppressive throughout... there are a couple of very difficult-to-watch scenes in which both Bruno & Eva are beaten & tormented by the pimps in Berlin, whilst the scenes between Bruno, Eva, & the slimy bank-executive, seem like a definite precursor to some unavoidable tragedy.

The film has very little colour to it, seeming almost black-and-white in a lot of scenes, with the colours seemingly muted by Herzog & his cinematographer Tomas Maunch (Berlin has never looked so cold & uninviting... whilst the mid-West looks eerie, lifeless & barren), whilst the use of non-professional actors in the secondary roles (particularly those set in the U.S.) helps to give the film a strange & disconcerting air of the documentary, to help juxtapose some of the more absurd situations at the heart of Herzog's script. Despite the usual Herzog characteristics, Stroszeck is also coloured by the influence of other filmmakers, particularly in this case, Herzog's friend & contemporary Rainer Werner Fassbinder (most apparent in the early scenes in Berlin, with the violent pimps, alllusions to American melodrama, & rigid, visual composition) & the U.S. documentarian Errol Morris, who's early films depicting the American mid-west were a key-influence on Herzog's representation of the region here.

Stroszek is, without question, a Herzog masterpiece, easily as vital & enjoyable as the more well-known films he made with Klaus Kinski. The performances are astounding throughout, whether from the professionals or the non-professionals (the beautiful Eva Mattes, a regular character in Fassbinder's films, is as remarkable here as she was in Herzog's later underrated film Woyzeck), whilst the style & tone of the film is spot on... managing to offer up many of those sublime moments synonymous with Herzog's work, but with a story & a character that are both entertaining & affecting. The ending is suitably vague, but ties the story together nicely whilst continuing the central character's plunge into the bleak abyss. That iconic image of the dancing chicken speaks volumes about the futility & prolonged madness of life (or something like that) & simply adds to the overalll bizarre (almost comedic, almost nightmarish) charm that Herzog so effectively creates.

A classic from 1977.... - By: Jason Parkes, 15 Jun 2005
'Stroszek' came from a period in Werner Herzog's oeuvre where he was distanced from frequent collaborator Klaus Kinski ('Aguire, the Wrath of God','Nosferatu','Fitzcarraldo'). During this period he made films with Bruno S. , notably 'The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser'(1974) & this film from 1977...

The association between Bruno S.'s own-life & his character is made when the central character is released from an institution (swapping an asylum for a prison) to an unforgiving Berlin. Stroszek ends up linking with a prostitute & an old man & following a bizarre scene of piano-related torture (????), ends up emigrating with his friends to the USA...

'Stroszek' then takes on the feel common to U.S. indie-cinema- the subtitle-jokes here prefigure Jim Jarmusch's subtitle-play in 'Ghost Dog- the Way of the Samurai' (2000) & also reminding me of Jarmusch's earlier 'Stranger Than Paradise' (1984) & 'Down By Law' (1985). 'Stroszek' also has that odd feel common to some works of the New German Cinema of the time- notably 'Alice in the Cities' & 'Kings of the Road' by Wim Wenders & 'Fear Eats the Soul' by Rainer Werner Fassbinder- outsiders being a common notion to these films...

After a New York tourist part, the film settles into the Mid West of the States, & how the "American dream" is false & Stroszek eventuallly descends into crime & suicide. Suicide is important to mention, as 'Stroszek' is associated with the suicide of Joy Division-singer Ian Curtis, who watched the film on TV in 1980 & killed himself hours later (scenes from 'Stroszek' can be seen in the film '24 Hour Party People' & the posthumous 'Still' release by Joy Division quoted the chicken-line from this film's denoument). Saying that, readers of 'Lynch on Lynch' (Faber) will note that David Lynch (then shooting 'The Elephant Man' in the UK)watched the same television broadcast of 'Stroszek' & was filled with life. This is the sentiment I was filled with when watching this brilliant film - though Herzog's work often fallls into love or hate rather than anywhere between...

'Stroszek' stands up as one of Herzog's great films, though there have been many, take your pick - 'Aguire, the Wrath of God', 'The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser','Fitzcarraldo','Little Dieter Needs to Fly','Wings of Hope','Land of Silence & Darkness', 'Heart of Glass' etc. A great film, & one that stands as a great work of world cinema...