“Trouble is, she likes everything. She's always happy. She desires nothing, envies no one, is curious about nothing. You can't surprise her. She doesn't notice the humiliations, though they happen to her every day. It all rolls off her back like some waterproof material. Zero ambition. No moral code. Not even a whore's love of money.”

– the writer

“I look into the distance to the end of the world. Before the day is over, the end will come. First, time will tumble, and then the earth. The clouds will begin to race… the earth boils over; this is the sign. This is the beginning of the end. The world's edge begins to crumble… everything starts to collapse… tumbles, fall, crumbles and collapses. I look into the cataract. I feel an undertow, it draws me, it sucks me down. I began to fal, a vertigo seizes upon me.”

– Hias

Someone named Greg for National Greg Day, USA.

“Sie können sich einen anderen Beruf aussuchen. Sie sind ein toter Mann.”

November 3 redux

“I'm calm. I'm completely calm. You can leave me alone now”

– Margot

A little boy takes in the magic of pre-Christmas, while the adults rush and worry about all that must to be bought.

16 year old Benno (Christof Wackernagel) lives in a reformatory until the Lohmanns, a rich middle-aged #WestBerlin business couple decides to adopt him. A new world opens up, one of adulthood and responsibility. For the teenager, this neatly regulated new bourgeois life feels all wrong.

“Information is like a bank. Some of us are rich. Some of us are poor, with information. All of us can be rich. Our job, your job, is to rob the bank. To kill the guard. To go out there to destroy everybody who keeps, and hides, the whole information. Simple. Special. Information. Power.”

– The High Priest

Mr R. (Kurt Raab), his full name is irrelevant, is a hardworking, almost invisible man. He laughs along when his coworkers make stale jokes to shorten the long days. He neatly completes his draftman's assignments and politely nods when the boss berates him. He smokes too much, 80 a day, and at the yearly checkup is told to cut the habit down. His son fails at school and Mrs R. wishes for nicer furniture and a skiing holiday, when Mr R. is promoted.

“No, no, geh' nicht vorbei, als wär' nichts gescheh'n, Es ist zu spät, um zu lügen, Komm und verzeih, ich werd' mit dir geh'n, Wohin dein Weg auch führt, Und die Welt, sie wird schön.”

– Christian Anders, Geh nicht vorbei (1969)

So why does Herr R run amok?

Bruno Stroszek (Bruno S.), his friends Eva (Eva Mattes) and Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz, responsible for the fairy-tale music you hear in this film) decide to leave dreary #Berlin behind and move to #Wisconsin where the latter's nephew lives. A new life, with dreams of music and animal magnetism, awaits them there.

“Was ist loos? Der Hund is loose.”

– Clayton

As so oft with #Herzog, the story behind Stroszek is as engrossing as the resulting film. Documentary maker Errol Morris and Herzog were fascinated by Wisconsin's own Ed Gein and wondered if Gein had dug up his own mother, as was rumoured at the time. As they would, they decided to open the poor woman's grave. Morris never showed up, and neither did Herzog but only because his car broke down en route to Plainfield, Wisconsin. Trying to get the vehicle fixed, Herzog entered the workshop of a Clayton Szalpinski.

 

A character in his own right, and a non-actor to boot, Clayton ended up in Stroszek as Scheitz's nephew; a MacGuffin odder than a dancing chicken.