Stroszek (1977)

Synopsis: In Werner Herzog's idiosynchratic and lyrical take on the road movie, the road in question stretches between the gritty, urban slums of Berlin and the equally desolate railroad flats of Wisconsin, U.S.A. Herzog regular, Bruno S. (Kaspar Hauser in Herzog's THE MYSTERY OF KASPAR HAUSER)... In Werner Herzog's idiosynchratic and lyrical take on the road movie, the road in question stretches between the gritty, urban slums of Berlin and the equally desolate railroad flats of Wisconsin, U.S.A. Herzog regular, Bruno S. (Kaspar Hauser in Herzog's THE MYSTERY OF KASPAR HAUSER) plays Stroszek, just out of jail, who is trying to stop drinking and eke out a living by selling fruit and playing music on the street. Stroszek finds a soul mate in Eva (Eva Mattes), an equally hard-up Berlin prostitute. However, the two quickly find their fate closing in on them when Eva's ex-pimps threaten to kill them both. An unlikely solution arises when Stroszek's neighbor, eccentric and aging Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz), takes them along as he heads to rural Wisconsin to meet up with long-lost relatives. When the three displaced Germans arrive in Wisconsin, their lives seem to change for the better, but as the tarnished lures of capitalism fade and the bills pile up, they find themselves locked into the same struggles they fled Berlin to escape. In the process Herzog paints a melancholic and dark portrait of the alien landscapes and the perversely poetic culture of the rural poor in Midwestern America. [More]