Movie Review – Stroszek

Stroszek (1977)
Written and directed by Werner Herzog

Bruno Schleinstein was a German artist & musician whose life was filled with struggles. He was abandoned as a baby during the Nazi regime. Bruno was mentally disabled and became one of those orphans experimented on by the fascists. He never received visits from his family despite knowing who they were and that they were ignoring his existence. Even after the war, Bruno was shuffled from one institution to the next with little regard for his humanity. Along the way, he learned the accordion, and music would become one of the few things that soothed & comforted him. He was eventually dumped onto the streets and made his way as a street performer, being spotlighted in a German documentary about this subculture. This film caused Bruno to come into the purview of Werner Herzog. The director saw great potential in Bruno as an actor and cast him in The Enigma of Kasper Hauser. He followed that up with this semi-biographical film with Bruno playing a fictional version of himself.

In the film, Bruno Stroszek (Bruno S.) is a street performer in Berlin. He’s just been released from prison and is trying to abstain from alcohol, one of the things that got him in trouble. While at one of his old hangouts, Bruno befriends Eva, a prostitute who is subjected to abuse by her two pimps. The couple leaves Germany to escape this hell and invite their eccentric neighbor Scheitz. Scheitz was already planning to move to Wisconsin in the States, where his cousin established a life. The three pack up and make the big move. When they reach the Midwest, all their dreams of a grand new life quickly dissolve. Before you know it, Eva is back to sex work as her waitressing job doesn’t pay enough. Soon enough, all their hopes fall apart until things end in chaos.

Herzog sets out to tell a remarkably un-Herzog-like story. We follow these three Germans as they make a significant change in the hopes that they can find peace. That doesn’t play out how they hope. Yet, within this cruelty of life, there is joy. Rebellion against the tyranny of dehumanization is an expression of joy. It is joy in being alive, in acknowledging one’s own humanity. Bruno had every reason to wallow in his pain while institutionalized, and we cannot doubt that he did. But he also found music and a way to tell others about his suffering through music. That is also a part of the process of dealing with a terrible world. You must be able to tell your story and the fullness of your experience. 

There’s a tendency to read Herzog’s films as nihilistic. They often end in hopelessness or at least in some state of failure. Any progress made usually comes at the cost of something precious. My belief is that Herzog acknowledges the cruelty of life but also that there is beauty in even the most seemingly insignificant person. His fascination with Bruno S. as a human being shows that. Most people probably never looked twice at Bruno, but in Herzog’s eyes, he’s a person with tremendous beauty. The man had no acting experience until Herzog, and he made him the star of two films. Is Bruno a great actor? Maybe not in the traditional sense, but his naturalistic performance adds groundedness to this role. Stroszek is a person who could never be played by a trained actor and feels the same. The raw nature of Bruno’s acting accentuates the character.

This film began as an idea to make a documentary about American serial killer Ed Gein, hence the Wisconsin setting. But as Herzog developed the concept, it transformed into this narrative picture, which is tremendously gentle with its characters. The director never allows anything gratuitously horrifying to happen to them. Violence is muted or not shown. Nothing extreme is ever even implied. We witness a vital exchange when the Germans first arrive at their new mobile home. “Nobody kicks you here,” Eva tries to convince herself. “No, not physically. Here, they do it spiritually,” Stroszek responds.

Herzog seeks out humor in dire situations to show our humanity is too complex to fully extinguish. He explains how a place like Wisconsin, with its stinging cold and barren landscapes, could breed a person like Gein. Yet, there’s a desire to create and make music among its people, too. Herzog makes it very apparent that he is drawing a line of comparison between Stroszek and the dancing chicken he encounters near the end. The chicken has been conditioned to respond to specific stimuli by dancing in his cage. 

Life is a constant interplay of tragedy & comedy, often coming from people’s perceptions. Some cry when horrible things occur. Others may laugh as these events can highlight the terrible absurdities of human existence. Herzog juggles both across the screen sometimes, as in the final sequence case, like a ping pong ball bouncing back and forth across the table. 

The failure of the proposed American Dream is underscored when Stroszek and friends arrive. Within that broken dream are still points of light. The image of a premature baby able to grab and grip a finger is one of the film’s most powerful metaphors. The weakest have strength when they are allowed to display it. The dancing chicken reminds us that even those we perceive as animals are not worthless; they have tremendous beauty inside them. It was Herzog’s trust in Bruno S. to act without really having evidence he could do it is a testament to how much the filmmaker believes in the human spirit. There are incredible things we fail to see in people around us every single day.