Retrospective: Stroszek (Patreon)

Bruno Stroszek (Bruno S.) emerges from prison after an unspecified period of time for an offense which is also unspecified but implied to be related to his drinking. He takes in Eva (Eva Mattes), a sex worker who's suffering abuse from her pimps. Their neighbor Scheitz (Clemen Scheitz) gradually spirals as he obsessively studies animal magnetism. Stroszek spends his days as a street performer cacophonous playing his accordion to an audience of none. It's clear that Stroszek wants something, but he can't identify what it is. Perhaps all he wants is Something Else, and that Something Else is what drives him and his friends to immigrate to America and settle in, of all places, Wisconsin.

As the casting of actors as characters with their name implies, Stroszek has a tenuous relationship with the fiction label. Most Werner Herzog films are about their own creation, and specifically the mad odyssey of their production. It's not hard to read Herzog's ambivalence to Germany into Stroszek's journey to America, nor to see his disillusionment about America in Stroszek's utter boredom with the place. This is expressed in a thrillingly weird, funny and sad road movie where chickens dance to weird blues music and auction chants take on the quality of opera. One of Herzog's best features.