Bruno S., Bruno Stroszek, knows it's going to turn bad. He knows it's heading in the wrong direction. Things were set in motion long before he appeared. Someone's put money in the slot. He'll do what he should. He'll dance like the chicken in the arcade – it's his fate.
What can he do but dance? And it's not even dancing. It's what he has to do. It's the only thing he can do, just like Kafka's hunger artist, who has no choice but to starve. He has to pick his feet from the hot plate, or they will get burnt. He has to act, he has to do things, otherwise there'll be trouble.
What if had let Eva be mistreated by her pimp? What if he hadn't brought her back to his apartment? Trouble followed her, of course. They roughed up Bruno. He had to leave. It was the best thing to go with Eva and Mr Scheitz to live in Wisconsin. What choice did they have? To have stayed would have been madness. And to move … Bruno has to move. He's like the dancing chicken.
And what could he do, while in Wisconsin, but find somewhere to live for Eva and himself? They couldn't live on the plains of Railway Flats after all, could they? The mobile home – a double width 1973 Fleetwood mobile home – was the obvious choice. Bruno deserved a little luxury. A console TV. The Winsconsin plains were the hot plate.
But didn't he know, even as he signed the contract, that he would have to make payments – payments he was in no way capable of making? Of course – but what could he do? There was a hotplate underneath him. He moved – he danced. He twitched, that was all. It was a reflex – and how could he be blamed for that? It was going to turn bad, he knew. Things always turned bad …
It wasn't as if they were cruel to him, the Americans. Clayton, Mr Scheitz's nephew, was nice. Bruno works for him as a mechanic. So was the bank official, who seemed embarrassed to bring up the subject of money, but who warns Bruno nevertheless about the dangers of repossession.
But Bruno's bored with his job. He can't pay his bills. He becomes depressed. Eva closes her door to him. She sleeps alone now. And eventually, the mobile home, which came in towed by a truck, is auctioned off. Where's he going to live? It's all falling apart, as Bruno knew it would. It had to fall apart. How could it be otherwise?
Desperation: Bruno and Mr Scheitz are convinced there's a conspiracy against them. They have to act! The hotplate again. So they take a rifle and go to rob a bank. Only the bank's closed. They rob the barber shop next door instead. They net 32 dollars. Then they head across to the supermarket, Bruno picking up a frozen chicken.
Mr Scheitz, with his rifle, is arrested. Bruno drives their getaway car, which they'd left running, to an amusement arcade. He leaves his car running in circles outside. He feeds quarters to make a real rabbit ride a fire truck, a duck play a bass drum, and a chicken dance. Then he goes off to ride on a chairlift with his frozen chicken.
What else could he do? Off he goes, his chicken on the seat beside him. We hear a gunshot. Bruno's shot himself. And we return to the chicken. We watch the chicken dancing, the chicken made to dance on its hot plate, Sonny Terry's harmonica on the soundtrack.
Lars Iyer's Blog 