Werner Herzog
La Ballata di Stroszek

In 1977, director Herzog cast a non-professional actor, Bruno S., and tailored a story around him, a sad tale narrating the vicissitudes of a poor devil (Bruno Stroszek), through misunderstanding, solitude, and squalor. Elements of the protagonist's real life are incorporated into the film, as if to emphasize the universal impact of the movie, as if to say "this is not just fiction, this is a parable that nails the grim reality".

Plot: Bruno Stroszek is a street musician, naive, kind, but with a penchant for alcohol. The film begins with his release from prison. Upon leaving jail, he joins an eccentric old man (Scheitz) and a prostitute, Eva. The Berlin experienced by the protagonists, however, is a violent city, dominated by unscrupulous people (specifically Eva's pimp), and the three decide to flee to America, to Wisconsin, where Scheitz has a relative. Upon arriving in the New World, Bruno is employed as a mechanic, Eva as a waitress, and the couple buys a trailer to live in. Soon, even America becomes a mirage: the installments for the trailer/home become pressing, Eva returns to prostitution, Bruno feels increasingly lonely and marginalized, just like old Scheitz. Desperation drives Scheitz and Bruno to attempt a clumsy robbery that ends with the capture of the former and the suicide of the latter.

"La Ballata di Stroszek" is a film that offers no escape: cruel Fate follows the protagonists like a shadow, who vainly attempt to escape the sufferings life has reserved for them. Many see the film as a social critique of the American model, as an unmasking of the much-vaunted American dream. Personally, I believe the story tells us something different: America is just another setting, a stage towards the total and inevitable descent of the protagonists (let's not forget that the depiction of Berlin is equally disheartening). Bruno seems to speak with difficulty throughout the film, mirroring his challenges in integrating into a world that neither needs nor wants him. Even Eva, who shows tenderness and affection, ends up betraying and abandoning him, not out of malice, but because it is the natural chain of events. More than the dialogues, however, the images are striking, from the grey courtyards of Berlin to the dusty American deserts, the sparse interiors, the filthy squalor of low, sad lives that would settle for little and even that little they cannot obtain. Sublime are the more visionary sequences, a true stylistic hallmark of a formidable filmmaker who manages to convey the entire story through symbolic images in just a few moments. I mention only three sequences among many: Bruno's sweetness while singing on the street amidst the indifference of the houses, the repossession of the trailer and consequently the auction to sell it, with Bruno watching helplessly and regretfully, and finally, the Indian amusement park and the "dance of the chicken", a metaphor for the story and Herzog's Cinema.

An important film, at times a masterpiece if we consider the images and the expressive and poetic power they evoke, weaker in dialogues and too pitiful, despite an apparently documentary-like cut.