What an unclassifiable hybrid/whatever movie Stroszek is. I'd wager it's the kind of picture that Gonzo the Great (yes, the Muppet) would probably make if he were from Germany and looking to make a tragic-comic look on one man's journey in the rural side of America (after all, the last sequence would make perfect sense, wouldn't it). In truth, it's Werner Herzog at his most focused and un-hinged, a work of wild, original art where the tone ranges from harsh reality, documentary realism (or so we might think), to drama stripped of its 'melo', and a brand of satire that goes beyond the usual realm and is satirical only in the sense that you know something is being made fun of. In fact, I'd say the last twenty-five, thirty minutes of this picture are the funniest, and even in these minutes there's a sense of sorrow to what has happened with Bruno Stroszek (Bruno S., sort of as himself, I suppose, the line between fiction and fact is so blurry that it's the only way Herzog can get things done) and how his girlfriend (Eva Mattes) leaves him, and his best friend and neighbor gets arrested after armed robbery of a, uh, store in a basement next to a bank, I guess.
But whatever weirdness and sort of everyday mundane qualities that go hand in hand with the film Stroszek are given a greater context. I actually had a little more interest in what was going on after having just seen Chaplin's Modern Times, and seeing how there could be a comparison made to the two. Of course, Herzog could never be one to induce the silly physical comedy that makes up the bulk of Chaplin's films, but there is a similarity that struck me, and helped make me really care about what was going on with these characters- Herzog, for all his showing the ultimate follies, loves Stroszek, or at least does not try and show him off as being a complete waste of life. And if it does almost come off that way (Stroszek is, after all, a perpetual drunk who got released only recently from the mental hospital, and can never get steady work aside from being a mechanic once in the US), it's off-set by how much he even cares about the much more flawed Eva, too. He sees them in a context of society and civilization as well as just stand-alone outcasts (outcasts being another Chaplin comparison) not to mention the other side characters, both wretchedly cruel and mean like the Germans who bully Stroszek and beat up on Eva, or the wacky co-workers and very formal mortgage/loan people. So, in a way, Herzog takes on the other side of what we might usually find in a Chaplin effort, which includes cynicism (at least skepticism), despair, and replacing morality with a truly twisted sense of humor. Not that the form of documentary, more than anything, peeks its head into the work.
There isn't much story to report, aside from the bulk of what I've already mentioned- Stroszek, Eva and their elderly neighbor escape from the harsh and cruel state of being they're at in Berlin (a brief but interesting commentary on Germany too), only to find in the small-town Wisconsin life not much more in line of prosperity. Soon, Stroszek is on his own when he loses his trailer-home, Eva leaves him after a drunken ramble he goes on, and of course the aforementioned botched robbery. He heads off randomly to another small town, tells his story to a random guy, and then as his truck goes up in flames, he gets caught on a ski-lift after passing by a dancing chicken. All the while Bruno S. plays this guy with no punches pulled, and is as intuitive a non-professional actor as any given others in the old neo-realist days. Eva, too, wasn't that much of an actress yet when she took on this role. And a lot of the time (David Lynch mentioned this in an interview as he started watching the film in the middle) it's like watching a documentary of these people, showing in all the ordinary working-class ways how they get stuck and any chance of the "American dream" gets squashed. One's never really sure who's an actor or not, but it makes no difference really. A lot of it is some of the most harrowing cinema that I've seen in a while- the tone is of a bitterness at the system, any system, and of a sorrow that is everlooming, that is, perhaps, until the ending.
Remarkable then is really how much I laughed during the film. Even in the earlier scenes, when it was dreary, the sort of behavior in parts, and especially notes of the dialog, rang of the complete randomness that is all abound in Herzog's work. But one only needs to look at Stroszek to see the Herzog sense of humor working full-tilt amid the social commentary and despair. The two funniest sequences- not withstanding the armed robbery- are the auction scene (that guy, wow, just wow is all I could say after that), and the dancing chicken. A big chunk of the dancing chicken scene's bizarre appeal is the music, with a true absurdity to the harmonica playing and wailing vocals. Many over the years have wondered the significance of the dancing chicken, most particularly as the ending to the picture. While Herzog himself claims it to be a metaphor for something he can't place, a friend mentioned that it could be capitalism, or the chicken as a representation of Bruno Stroszek, or of an American in general. I wouldn't want to jump to any conclusions just yet, and I'm glad that way- all I know is that it's one of the funniest three minutes of film to ever come out of Europe. It's Herzog's ultimate, tragic-comic tale about a man in the lower depths of himself and his society. A+
But whatever weirdness and sort of everyday mundane qualities that go hand in hand with the film Stroszek are given a greater context. I actually had a little more interest in what was going on after having just seen Chaplin's Modern Times, and seeing how there could be a comparison made to the two. Of course, Herzog could never be one to induce the silly physical comedy that makes up the bulk of Chaplin's films, but there is a similarity that struck me, and helped make me really care about what was going on with these characters- Herzog, for all his showing the ultimate follies, loves Stroszek, or at least does not try and show him off as being a complete waste of life. And if it does almost come off that way (Stroszek is, after all, a perpetual drunk who got released only recently from the mental hospital, and can never get steady work aside from being a mechanic once in the US), it's off-set by how much he even cares about the much more flawed Eva, too. He sees them in a context of society and civilization as well as just stand-alone outcasts (outcasts being another Chaplin comparison) not to mention the other side characters, both wretchedly cruel and mean like the Germans who bully Stroszek and beat up on Eva, or the wacky co-workers and very formal mortgage/loan people. So, in a way, Herzog takes on the other side of what we might usually find in a Chaplin effort, which includes cynicism (at least skepticism), despair, and replacing morality with a truly twisted sense of humor. Not that the form of documentary, more than anything, peeks its head into the work.
There isn't much story to report, aside from the bulk of what I've already mentioned- Stroszek, Eva and their elderly neighbor escape from the harsh and cruel state of being they're at in Berlin (a brief but interesting commentary on Germany too), only to find in the small-town Wisconsin life not much more in line of prosperity. Soon, Stroszek is on his own when he loses his trailer-home, Eva leaves him after a drunken ramble he goes on, and of course the aforementioned botched robbery. He heads off randomly to another small town, tells his story to a random guy, and then as his truck goes up in flames, he gets caught on a ski-lift after passing by a dancing chicken. All the while Bruno S. plays this guy with no punches pulled, and is as intuitive a non-professional actor as any given others in the old neo-realist days. Eva, too, wasn't that much of an actress yet when she took on this role. And a lot of the time (David Lynch mentioned this in an interview as he started watching the film in the middle) it's like watching a documentary of these people, showing in all the ordinary working-class ways how they get stuck and any chance of the "American dream" gets squashed. One's never really sure who's an actor or not, but it makes no difference really. A lot of it is some of the most harrowing cinema that I've seen in a while- the tone is of a bitterness at the system, any system, and of a sorrow that is everlooming, that is, perhaps, until the ending.
Remarkable then is really how much I laughed during the film. Even in the earlier scenes, when it was dreary, the sort of behavior in parts, and especially notes of the dialog, rang of the complete randomness that is all abound in Herzog's work. But one only needs to look at Stroszek to see the Herzog sense of humor working full-tilt amid the social commentary and despair. The two funniest sequences- not withstanding the armed robbery- are the auction scene (that guy, wow, just wow is all I could say after that), and the dancing chicken. A big chunk of the dancing chicken scene's bizarre appeal is the music, with a true absurdity to the harmonica playing and wailing vocals. Many over the years have wondered the significance of the dancing chicken, most particularly as the ending to the picture. While Herzog himself claims it to be a metaphor for something he can't place, a friend mentioned that it could be capitalism, or the chicken as a representation of Bruno Stroszek, or of an American in general. I wouldn't want to jump to any conclusions just yet, and I'm glad that way- all I know is that it's one of the funniest three minutes of film to ever come out of Europe. It's Herzog's ultimate, tragic-comic tale about a man in the lower depths of himself and his society. A+