Stroszek

"Stroszek" will potentially depress the hell out of you unless you happen to find Werner Herzog's brand of off-beat filmmaking amusing. I do mostly, and therefore wasn't tempted to jump off a bridge at the end of this movie, but I don't know that I'd go as far as to say it's "riotously funny," as its marketing poster suggests.

"Stroszek" tells the fictional story of a real man named Bruno Stroszek. In other words, Stroszek plays himself in this eccentric film about a man who's released from prison, meets back up with his girlfriend and elderly buddy, and takes off for the fabled lands of....Wisconsin....to pursue the American dream. Anyone who's actually been to Wisconsin can probably guess how things play out for three immigrants with about three dollars between them. What follows is a series of vignettes that place Bruno in increasingly desperate straits and ends in an ambiguous finale that involves a ski lift and dancing chickens.

Welcome to the world of Werner Herzog, folks. "Stroszek" is not as compelling as some of Herzog's best, but it does inspire a sort of morbid fascination, if only because we take comfort that our situation isn't as bad as the one our characters find themselves in. But lest you are tempted to feel too sorry for Stroszek, he, like many of Herzog's protagonists, staunchly refuses to beg for sympathy, and faces one hardship after another with the dogged determination of a man who never fully understands how humble is his lot.

Grade: A-