"Woyzeck" (1979)

Until the 19^th century the treatment of those with mental illness was horrendous, and even the reforms from that century were inadequate. At present, we still have a long way to go but there are now opportunities to help those who need it. But if you lived at any time before the last century: you were fucked. You’d be looked down upon at best, but you were even more likely to be taken advantage of or seen as a problem. Werner Herzog’s Woyzeck is about a German soldier Johann Franz Woyzeck (Klaus Kinski) who is very clearly a ticking time bomb. He is paranoid and hears voices. This is exacerbated by everyone around him, who only see how pathetic and nervous he is. Kinski was an intense method actor and director Werner Herzog brought out some of his best performances by bringing out the ferocious intensity Kinski could convey like few others. Kinski allows his face to sink in further and further as he suffers indignity upon indignity and his madness sets in. At any given point, Kinski’s posture is rigid but his eyes constantly suggest the depths of his emotional turmoil. Woyzeck is in a loveless marriage with Marie (Eva Mattes), who’s bored and looking to have affairs. Woyzeck seeks the help of doctor and the doctor begins using Woyzeck as a subject of experiment. The doctor makes him eat only peas for a year, which only serves to worsen Woyzeck’s instability. The doctor takes the madness as a joke and laughs about Woyzeck as if he were an amusing oddity. Herzog plays this all out with a sense of forgone conclusion; madness is inevitable once it sets in. 

Grade: B+