Movie Recommendation: Stroszek

The film tells the story of Bruno, an alcoholic who has just been released from prison in Berlin, and Eva, who makes a living as a prostitute and his old neighbor, from Berlin to Wisconsin and the process leading up to Bruno's suicide. The movie may be the most realistic and tragic of the Herzog movies we have ever seen. It's so tragic that's why it's so funny. Ionesco, one of the important writers of the theater of the absurd, defines what “funny” is in an interview: “What is comedy to me?... The world is funny; because it is strange. It's funny; because it is tragic. To me, the funny is a facet of the tragic. One side of the tragedy is the tragedy itself. In fact, the funny is even more tragic than the tragic.” Strozsek's humor can also be considered funny in the context of this definition of Ionesco.

In Stroszek, as in his previous films, we see a young man excluded from society due to his differences as the main character of the story. We see that animals (chicken, rabbit, etc.) are used in very effective scenes in the movie. There are also very interesting experiments with sounds in this movie. Sounds that evolved from the siren to music, the officer calling out to other people from the microphone by making sounds like rap singing, and many more. It's as if the director is trying to make the audience hear these voices as Bruno hears them. In other words, Herzog not only shows Bruno's complexity and the way he perceives the world, but also tries to make us perceive it both visually and audibly. In addition, there are scenes with classical music in this movie. Herzog includes several classical music pieces in almost every movie.

One of the most interesting auter directors of our time, Herzog's Strozsek movie promises a very good viewing for those who love absurd theatrical narratives in the cinema.