Stroszek

Herzog seems to have run for cover after Heart of Glass, a supposedly 'difficult' film beneath whose seemingly impenetrable surface lay a simple reconstruction of key elements from horror films. And Stroszek has been labelled unfairly as a travelogue comedy featuring Bruno S from The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Bruno (S for Superstar? He struts like some remedial cousin of Jack Nicholson) and oddball entourage - including the excellent Eva Mattes as prostitute girlfriend - leave modern Berlin for the golden opportunities of America; in reality, the despair of Railroad Flats, Wisconsin. Although relatively indulgent for Herzog, the film's comedy works well enough, because Herzog's idiosyncratic imagination finds an ideal counterpoint in the bleak flatlands of poor white America. His view of that country is the most askance since the films of Monte Hellman. For all the supposed lightness, it is the film's core of despair which in the end devours everything.