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Old 05-10-2011, 07:00 PM   #1
Timpsi
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Kuopio, Finland
Posts: 450
Default Recent movie experiences

Seems that there's no existing thread for this purpose - until now.

What films have you seen lately, what were your impressions?



I saw Werner Herzog's Woyzeck last night, and it left me with a lasting impression.. for many reasons.

The film is based on a famous, unfinished play by Georg Büchner. It tells the story of a poor, mentally unstable soldier who is constantly put down and abused by people around him; his superiors mock his intellect and morals, he is subject to experiments of a proto-nazi doctor, and his wife cheats on him. Chased into a corner, Woyzeck's mind disintegrates and paranoia takes over, which eventually leads into a tragic conclusion.

There isn't much of a story to tell - Woyzeck would probably say during a brief moment of sanity that the poor cannot afford good stories - and overall it's be easy to say that the movie feels very unpolished with abrupt cuts between scenes and uneven use of music score. However, that's not the focus here; it's the terrifyingly slow and minimalistic direction, and especially the manic acting of Klaus Kinski that drive the film. Especially the beginning and the ending of the movie are positively hair-raising.

It's hard to say which is scarier; the descent of Woyzeck into insanity, or Klaus Kinski's ability to portray it in such an authentic way. Either way, this is what cinema as an art is all about - even if it far from perfection.
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