Jan 16

Jan 16 Movie Review : Woyzeck (1979)

Georg Büchner is a largely forgotten XIXth century German writer and playwright who you're unlikely to ever come across if you haven't studied literature in college. He's primarily remembered by eggheads for his unfinished play Woyzeck. The only reason why anyone cares about Büchner’s play two centuries later is the 1979 film adaptation by the most entertaining crazy person I know Werner Herzog. Since his entire filmography has been inexplicably available on Tubi of all places, I decided to rewatch Woyzeck.

Long story short, Woyzeck tells the story of a lowly soldier named Franz Woyzeck (played by the ever haunting Klaus Kinski) who earns a living by cutting his superiors' hair and acting as a living guinea pig for a doctor (Willi Semmelrogge, but none of you care). He's shacked up with an easygoing girl named Marie (Eva Mattes) who he has a son with. As he struggles physically and mentally to make ends meet, Marie gets tired of Woyzeck and starts dating another soldier while he’s slowly, but surely losing his mind.

Herzog and Haunting

Woyzeck is not a good looking movie per se. Since it is basically a filmed play and Werner Herzog had a naturalist streak in the 1970s, there's not a lot of camera movement and you're witnessing the narrative from an uncomfortable standpoint, as if you were in the same room and eavesdropping on the budding tragedy for its entire 79 minutes runtime. But I rewatched Woyzeck first for one reason and one reason only. Apologies to those who haven't seen an almost 200 years old play, but I'm about to trop a huge spoiler.

Franz Woyzeck kills his wife at the end of the play. He stabs her to death and Herzog's interpretation of Marie's killing has to be the ugliest, most violent and awe-inspiring, uncomfortably lengthy murder scene I've ever seen in my life. It's in slow motion, there's an old folk song playing and Marie's barely on screen. Here is the entire murder scene if you’re interested, it's a grueling seven minutes long and I've been obsessed by it ever since first watching Woyzeck twenty-five years ago.

I don’t want to condemn or excuse femicide by any means, but look at the sheer pain on Klaus Kinski's face during that scene. It’s unnerving and yet it's hard to look away. By killing the most important person he had in his life, Woyzeck is basically killing himself and Kinski both understood and felt that on screen for us. He was a maniac and a poor excuse for a human being, but he was also capable of moments of great truth and beauty that are simply not available to regular, well-adjusted folks.

It's a scene I could never forget.

Wait a minute. What the hell just happened?

Is Woyzeck a story that bemoans a man who just killed his wife? Kind of? I mean it's 189 years old, so it's not the most forward-thinking piece of art there is out there, but there's a lot to how-Woyzeck-actually-gets-to-such-a-dark-place that's interesting. Franz Woyzeck is constantly dehumanized by the society he's trying to hard to contribute to. The doctor he acts as a guinea pig for in order earn extra money is treating him like a pet and the institution he's sworn to defend is trying to take his family away from him.

In that sense, Woyzeck is one of the earliest critiques of modernity you can find. It is very well explored in Werner Herzog's adaptation, but Franz Woyzeck is treated as disposable by self-serving individualists because of his lack of ambition. A man who just wants to provide and be there for his family is frowned upon and pushed to an animalistic state of self-destruction. I don’t think you should kill your wife because society rejects you, but Woyzeck is nonetheless a throwback to when community living meant something.

There are better Werner Herzog movies to revisit than Woyzeck (and I will revisit some in the upcoming weeks), but it features one of the most powerful, gut-wrenching scene I’ve ever seen in cinema history (and I’ve seen around 2000 movies) and it's worth watching for this scene alone. It makes you feel the utter horror that you're supposed to feel at a murder scene and for that alone, Woyzeck is a great movie. Werner Herzog is most definitely a crazy person, but films stuff that is impossible to not to think about.