Stroszek

Watched this for the second time. I think you could watch this again and again and it would still be brilliant. A subtle, funny but affecting look at the futility of a man's life.

Stumbled across this as part of an early Herzog collection I'd got out of the local library. Moving and hilarious in equal measure; helped by the increbible performance of the 'troubled' Bruno S as the titular Anit-Hero, 'Stroszek' is the most humane of Herzog's films and a massive influence on such Indie/Alt auters as Jim Jarmuch & Aki Karismaki

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Bruno S, Herzog's strange doppelganger, gets his own homage here in a film which draws heavily on his talents, his mental struggles and even uses his flat as the main character's flat in Berlin. The name is almost the same too. Released from prison and threatened with an asylum if he starts drinking and commits any more crime, Bruno struggles in Berlin against the crushing reality of Berlin, its crime and its harshness. He is threatened with torture by a couple of seriously nasty pimps, and so his friend Eva (Eva Mattes) turns a few dozen tricks with Turkish gastarbeiters and raises enough money to take off with the old man, Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz - are you getting the idea?), to go to America, land of dreams. For a brief moment the country is strange and beautiful and full of hope, until they settle in the back of beyond, buy on credit, and get trapped in the cycle of debt which we're too familiar with at this moment. Eva gets bored and heads off with a couple of truckers. Bruno is heartbroken. And here for the last 20 minutes the film moves into a truly epic and archetypal dimension which makes it one of the greats. The sharks move in and repossess everything. They do it with smiling faces, but they are no less ruthless than the Berlin pimps. Bruno and the old man try to rob a store with touching naivety, but the old man is arrested, and Bruno flees, clutching the frozen turkey from the supermarket which he was intending to pay for with his stolen money. The final sequence is circular. Bruno sets their truck moving around in circles; he takes a chair lift which goes up and down a hill in circles, and after a couple of turns we hear him shoot himself offscreen at the top. The film closes on an animal freakshow in which a chicken endlessly sets off a jukebox by pecking corn and dancing jerkily to music, which it will do until it too drops.We are all trapped in the cycle of reward and punishment. American capitalism is just as much a prison as the opening prison. There is no escape. Bleak, devastating, and an object lesson in film-making.

With all 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 Small turns up again in Stroszek, but this film is much more impressive than that exercise in chaos and subversion. It's another tale of people who don't fit anywhere, in this case the almost alien Bruno S. and his dysfunctional adopted family of hooker Eva Mattes and eccentric Clemens Scheitz, who emigrate from Germany to find the American dream only to discover easy credit, unpaid bills, bailiffs, rifles and dancing chickens instead.Yet for all the misfortune and grim subject matter, it's surprisingly not as bitter and 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 and 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 and 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.

Bruno S. regroups with Herzog after their previous collaboration, 'The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser'. Though this film is probably closer to 'Even Dwarfs Started Small'...It begins with the eponymous protoganist leaving an asylum and going to live in the 'real world' of Berlin...This section is depressing, due to the bullying of two pimp characters who torture him in an obscure manner using a piano (?). His best friends are an old man and a prostitute. The German section is fairly grim- until they decide to leave for the utopia of America...We get them doing the tourist thing, before heading to Wisconcin (or some other US-backwater)- where Stroszek enjoys beer, temporary work in a garage and selling his soul to his bank manager for a mobile home...While the old man confounds the locals with the best dual language jokes this side of 'Ghost Dog' (the film is not unsimilar to 'Stranger than Paradise'). The tragedy, albeit absurd has to occur- it involves polite bank managers, lorry drivers and auctioneers. The only options left are crime- our European outsiders are now the ultimate outsiders...The final scene is heartbreaking & hilarious: the dancing chickens offering an influence on 'Blue Velvet'- and the film demonstrating their was something in the air ('Eraserhead' was released the same year). There are cars on fire. And a ski-lift...This is the film Ian Curtis (Joy Division) watched, prior to listening to Iggy Pop's 'The Idiot' and killing himself. This is also the film that David Lynch watched in his hotel room (it was the same television transmission) and was amazed by...Probably my fave Herzog, it deserves to be seen by everyone, though 'Aguire...' and 'The Enigma...' are probably better films. What can I say?- a stunning culture clash. The outsiders outsiders.