ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Jackson Booth-Millard From director Werner Herzog (Nosferatu the Vampyre, Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man), I confess that I do not remember much of this German film at all, not even watching all of it, but I know I did see it because it is in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Basically Berlin street performer Bruno Stroszek (Bruno S.) has been warned to stop drinking after being released from prison, but he immediately goes to a bar, where he meets prostitute Eva (Eva Mattes), who he comforts as she is down on her luck, and later he ends up beaten up by the pimps. Bruno and Eva decide to escape any more harassment from these people by escaping from Germany by moving to Wisconsin, America, and live with his American nephew Clayton (Clayton Szalpinski), so they start their journey, stopping off to do sight seeing in New York City. There Bruno gets a job with his nephew as a mechanic, and Eva works in a truck stop as a waitress, and the couple buy a trailer, but they trouble with the bills, so to stop the bank repossessing their home she is forced back into prostitution, but it isn't enough. After Eva leaves him, he starts a little bit of drinking again, and is forced to put the trailer up for auction, and after believing there is some kind of "conspiracy", he and his original elderly neighbour Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz) steal some money from a barbershop. The police catch and arrest Scheitz, but Bruno gets away, heading back to the garage, taking loads of beer and heading for the highway into the mountains, but forced to stop in a small town when the truck breaks down. Bruno sets the truck on fire, and the final time you see him is getting on a ski lift with a frozen turkey, then the police arrive, you hear a shot, and the last moments see a chicken playing the piano and a rabbit riding a toy fire truck, I don't know why, LOL. I did pay attention to the moments that mattered, were most interesting and would make it a "must see", such as a scene of the lead actor playing his accordion, and the strange ending, but I don't think it would have made much difference to me if I had paid more attention, it seemed a confusing story anyway, but what I did see and catch onto made an alright satirical drama. Worth watching, at least once, in my opinion!

Claudio Carvalho In Berlin, the alcoholic street musician Bruno Stroszek (Bruno S.) is released from prison and while returning home, he invites the prostitute Eva (Eva Mattes) to move to his apartment and leave her two abusive pimps. His paranoid friend and neighbor Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz) has taken care of his apartment and his piano while he was imprisoned. On the next day, Stroszek plays accordion and glockenspiel on the streets to raise some money and when he arrives home, he finds Eva beaten and the two pimps humiliate him. The harassment continues and without any option, Stroszek, Eva and Scheitz decide to begin a new life in Wisconsin, where a relative of Scheitz lives. The trio of friends travels to the United States of America expecting to make money and accomplish the American Dream. Bruno works in a auto mechanic and Eva as a waitress in a diner, and they buy a prefabricated house despite the concern of Bruno with the installments. When the bank threatens to take the house due to delay in the payments of the loan, Eva enters in the prostitution again with truck drivers to raise the necessary money. Sooner Stroszek discovers in a tragic way the sad reality of the American Dream."Stroszec" is a powerful and realistic movie about losers and the American Dream. The screenplay is original and unpredictable like life is, with magnificent lines and Werner Herzog uses also amateurish cast leaded by Bruno Schleinstein from "The Enigma of Kaspar Hause", who is the unwanted son of a prostitute that spent a great part of his life in mental institutions due to the severe abuse and beaten; therefore, the actor has some problems indeed and the beginning of the film is very similar to his real life. The conclusion is open to interpretation and I believe that Stroszek shot himself. I do not understand the meaning of the dancing chicken; with regard to the frozen turkey, I am not sure whether it is a symbolism indicating that Stroszec wanted to return to his origins in Turkey since he is Turkish-German, or if it is Thanksgiving in USA at that moment and he ends alone without friends just with the turkey. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Stroszec"

bandw When we first meet Bruno Stroszek he is being released from prison with a lecture from the superintendent about not going back on the bottle. But soon Bruno is in a bar where he tries to re-engage with a woman named Eva. We don't get much information about Bruno's past relationship with Eva, but she is now a prostitute involved with two vicious and controlling pimps who have no use for the docile Bruno. When Bruno offers Eva a place to stay (a place that has been kept for him by an elderly neighbor named Scheitz) she accepts. But the pimps terrorize the two to the point where they feel that they have to get away, and Scheitz offers them the perfect opportunity to come with him to Wisconsin, at the invitation of a nephew. The three do go to Wisconsin, but America does not turn out to be exactly the land of milk and honey for them.The scruffy Stroszek has the aspect of a good-natured but wounded animal. He seems rather simple, but then you are not sure about him and he remains an enigma. I kept thinking to myself that this actor Bruno S. was doing a great job in creating a unique character. Only when I listened to the director's comments did I realized that Bruno S. was essentially playing himself. The son of a prostitute he was abused as a child and spent much of his life in institutions until the age of 26. Herzog saw him in a documentary on street musicians and recognized a quality in him that was enough for him to carry this film.Herzog says he wrote this in four and a half days, but, as is true for any work of art, it is a product of life experiences. Herzog puts his eclectic mind to work to great advantage. He has a memory for people and places and can bring them together in creative ways. For example, the man who plays Scheitz's nephew is a mechanic who in real life had worked on Herzog's car some time ago. Herzog remembered that there was a native American working in the shop at the time, and, even though he had long since left the business, Herzog tracked him down just so he could be in a few scenes. The use of non-actors in many of the scenes adds realism--hard to imagine actors could do any better. The scenes toward the end take place in Cherokee, North Carolina, a result of Herzog's memory of having once been there. It seems that many scenes are thrown in simply because they caught the director's fancy: a doctor tending a premature baby, two farmers feuding over a stretch of land, a driver-less truck running in circles. But this patchwork comes together to create a whole in a miraculous way. I particularly like the way that Herzog will hold a scene for added effect, like when poor Stroszek's repossessed trailer home is hauled off, leaving Stroszek staring at the empty landscape.I don't know what the hell the meaning of the final two minutes is, but I can almost guarantee that you will never forget that piece of film. These final minutes provoked in me some of the same emotions I experienced in watching the rest of the film--saddened by the pointless absurdity, but fascinated by the spectacle.Some see this film as an ultimate criticism of American society, but I do not see that. The Americans are just going about being human is all. The thrust of the story is about people like Stroszek--no matter where they are they cannot escape their unfortunate pasts and personal limitations. In not uncommon circumstances such people come to tragic ends.

cgodburn Stroszek is one of the best films about the American Dream ever made, which is odd because a German made it. Why is it so well made? Because right up until the psychotic, chicken dancing finale, Stroszek tells the truth about middle America from an outsider's point of view. The world that these people live in feels real and the people that inhabit the trailer filled landscape are accurate depictions. That's probably because Herzog cast non actors to play the American roles and shot on location in Wisconsin. The story, about the son of a prostitute who escapes his past from Germany and moves to America with his uncle and whore girlfriend is secondary to the great depictions of American life. Political discussions with the locals about Nazi Germany and American business contracts are scattered throughout the film. The trailer that Stroszek and his girlfriend live in is deplorable, and the job that he has as a mechanic isn't exactly what Stroszek wanted or what he was promised. While in Germany, the three main characters are told that America is the land of opportunity, a place where roads are literally paved with gold. These tales are reminiscent of the ones told to many immigrants at the beginning of the last century, only to arrive and find that America isn't exactly what they imagined.The contrast between the mid-west and Germany is a nice touch as well. Herzog could have had the main characters move to an urban environment such as New York, but it would have been too difficult to truly see the differences in the ways of life. Also, major urban environments are a very small percentage of land in this country and to apply the American Dream to a city only would be unfair inaccurate to the rest of America's population. The ending is insane, so insane in fact that the lead singer of a major rock band killed himself shortly after seeing the film. That's not to say that Herzog made him do it, but one can certainly see how the ending could send an unstable person over the edge. Until the crazy tourist trap, chicken sequence Stroszek is truth. It is truth about how people treat one another about about the myths we tell ourselves. The American Dream is an escape, but is that escape better or worse than what you came from?