Stroszek

Stroszek (1977) is a West German drama by Werner Herzog you can watch online on iFILM. Bruno Stroszek walks out of a Berlin prison with an accordion, a warning to stop drinking, and nowhere particular to go.

He gathers two companions — Eva, a street prostitute looking for a way out, and Scheitz, an elderly eccentric neighbour — and together they fly to Wisconsin, where Scheitz has family. What waits for them is a trailer home on credit, a car wash job, and the peculiarly bleak version of the American interior that Herzog found in Cherokee, North Carolina and Railroad Flats, Wisconsin. The dream does not materialise.

The lead was played by Bruno S., a self-taught musician Herzog had previously cast in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. He had no training and needed none — the bewilderment on screen is entirely real. Herzog shot partly on location during Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour, which adds another layer of accidental documentary. A strangely funny, deeply sad film that has never been easy to categorize. Stream Stroszek (1977) online on iFILM.