WOYZECK (1979)

Germany, mid-1800’s. Franz Woyzeck (Klaus Kinski) has a shit life. He’s a lowly soldier stationed in a small town, he has a young child out of wedlock with a woman who doesn’t like him and in order to make some extra money he takes up odd jobs like cutting hair and being subjected to medical experiments. One such experiment, has him eating nothing but peas. Another has him catching a cat that’s been thrown out of a window. On top of all this, Woyzeck appears to have the mental ability of a pine cone.

I didn't care for this film. I don't regret watching it, because I did enjoy watching Kinski fidget around like a restless Chihuahua, but there's got to be more to a film than just that. Also, the long, uninterrupted shots got old after a while.  I'm not against long scenes, some of the longer scenes in Herzog’s own AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD were awesome...but you gotta mix that shit up! Rumor is this 82-minute movie only has 27 edits. I didn't count them personally, but 27 can't be too far off.  There wasn't a lot of edits and the pace was damn near torture.  Honestly, you could turn on the subtitles and watch the film at 2x speed and be just fine. That's probably sacrilegious to say as a "film critic", but ain't nobody reading this crap anyway so two tears in a bucket.

Slow pace, unfinished feel to the story (which was probably done on purpose since the source material itself was never finished due to the author dying), unique cinematography, outstanding acting, abrupt ending, weakass push-ups, animal abuse (that scene pissed me off), a murder knife with very little blood on it, good lighting.  WOYZECK is not a horrible film, just not my cup of tea.  In a weird way, WOYZECK reminded me some of Herzog's first feature-length film, SIGNS OF LIFE, which I really liked.

[Not part of the review: It's interesting that the onscreen copyright for the film says 1976, but the film premiered on May 22, 1979 at the Cannes Film Festival.]