FILM: Woyzeck

Woyzeck is the story of a soldier who provides for his lover, Marie, and illegitimate child by doing odd jobs around the town. He works as the doctor's experiment subject who puts him on strange diets. As a result, Franz slowly goes mad, while discovering Marie's affair with the local drum major, ending in violence. It is based off an unfinished play by Georg Büchner.


Here is Klaus Kinski in his element - playing a mad man. It is common knowledge that Kinski was considered by many to be mad himself, only a lot louder than the madness of his characters. He brilliantly plays this simple character and the development of his madness is interesting to watch.

The plot is quite simple for a Herzog film, as are the characters.
Kinski began filming this film only days after the filming of Nosferatu had finished, so reached the set in a state of exhaustion which definitely adds to the confused and mad look in the character's face.

Of the Herzog films I have seen so far, this is my least favourite, simply because it is rather simple - there's not much depth in the topics - and because I have already seen Kinski play a mad character in Aguirre, Wrath of God, which he did so magnificently. Having said that, Woyzeck is definitely worth a watch - it may be my least favourite Herzog film but it is, by all means, still a good film. What I mean to say is, Herzog may not out-do himself in this film, but it still is a Herzog film - and Herzog, it seems, cannot go wrong.

FILM: Nosferatu: The Vampyre

Another film by Herzog, this is a really interesting look at the legend of Dracula; Nosferatu being an archaic Romanian word for 'vampire'.
Our main character, Jonathan, rides from Wismar, Germany, to Dracula's castle in Transylvania (yeah, he rides the entire way on horseback seemingly without any breaks...) to talk to Count Dracula about the deeds to a large house Dracula wishes to buy in Wismar.
Dracula locks Jonathan in his castle and drinks his blood at night. He leaves the castle hidden in a pile of coffins and is shipped onto a boat to Wismar, followed by a swarm of disease-ridden rats.
Dracula is particularly fascinated by Jonathan's wife, Lucy, who lets him drink her blood one night to be caught by the morning sun, which kills him.
Each role is brilliantly played. Klaus Kinski plays the sinister and haunted Dracula, Isabelle Adjani plays Lucy, the unheard heroin who suffers Dracula and the wake of chaos he leaves behind, and Bruno Ganz plays Jonathan who slowly turns into a vampire because of Dracula's bite. Kinski plays Dracula in a way that shows he is cursed, not merely evil. It's a haunted and lonely character - I began to feel sorry for him.
The story of Dracula is too famous for the film to be full of surprises, but it is wonderfully suspenseful and full of surreal moments and great acting that we forget we know the story.

FILM: Aguirre, The Wrath of God

This was the first in a line of Klaus Kinski films directed by Werner Herzog. Kinski, possibly mad himself, is brilliant at playing the insane.
This is a slow moving film about a group of Spanish soldiers (though the film is in German) who are searching for El Dorado against all odds.
They befall many troubles along the way, a lot of them due to the madness of Aguirre, and the following he gathers when threatening violence.
From starvation and sickness, the group of soldiers all die, and the film ends with a mad Aguirre stumbling around, talking to himself.
With hints of incest, and clear madness, and a lot of death, this film is dark in a calm sort of way.
It's a 'stick at it' kind of film - it's an exploration into madness and leaders, not plot.
If you're interested in discovering arty foreign films, this is a good start.