Cycles

Berlin, winter. Bruno S., Bruno Stroszek is released from prison. He's warned not to drink – it's drink that gets him in trouble. But Bruno knows that it's got nothing to do with drink. There are cycles in which he gets caught up. Cycles of life which catch him out. What can he do, Bruno, to change things? He is only Bruno …

Bruno speaks of himself in the third person. He's a spectator of himself. He stands to one side; he barely occupies his own place. He suffers; he undergoes life. It happens to him from without and he even happens to himself from the same place, from the same non-place: without.

Who is Bruno S. but one to whom things happen? Cycles, always cycles. And isn't it these cycles that lead him straight to a bar for a drink? Aren't these same cycles what lead him to bring her back to his apartment (Bruno S.'s real life apartment), which is being looked after by his elderly neighbour, Mr Scheitz (played by a Mr Scheitz)), who has a strong belief in animal magnetism (as Mr Scheitz in real life had a similar belief in animal magnetism)?

But Bruno loves to play music. There is something he loves, something which makes him feel less lonely. He plays the piano (which Bruno S. bought with his royalties from a previous film) and the accordion. He plays handbells. A moving sequence: watching Bruno perform a Berlin street song with his accordian in a back alley. (That was how the real Bruno S. performed on the weekend – in gardens, playing nineteenth century ballads in back garden. During the week, he would drive forklift trucks to make a living). 

He sings, he plays, and appears to disappear into his singing, his playing. (Later, in real life, he would claim to transmit songs, rather than perform them. To transmit them: this too would be part of fate, happening to Bruno from without). Is music part of a cycle? Or is it what allows him to escape the cycle – a kind of reprieve? When he's beaten up by Eva's pimps, he is so on the piano, on the handbells. A strange crucifixion. What does it mean? Has he lost his music? Has fate interposed itself between him and his music (but it's barely his music)?

Mr Scheitz tells him his nephew in Wisconsin has invited him to live with him. A decision: Bruno has made a decision: they should all go to Wisconsin, says Bruno: he, Mr Scheitz and Eva. Yes, it's time for them to start new lives, Bruno says. They should go! They must go! A decision: perhaps Eva has given him hope. Eva who will share his bed, even as she prostitutes herself to earn enough money for them all to go. A decision: is Bruno really standing up to fate? Is he really raising himself against it?

And there they are in Railroad Flats, Winconsin (it was really Plainfield, Ed Gein's home town, which Herzog had explored on a previous visit) … Of course, things go awry, as Bruno knows they must. Everything is fate to him. Everything comes from without. He happens to himself. He occurs in his place, in the place he cannot take. There's only music – fate? Something like counter-fate, or another part or face of fate. But here he is in America, far from his apartment, his piano, his music.

And now the decline, the terrible lability, and who is he to resist? Depressed, penniless, what life can he offer Eva? She closes her door to him. She sleeps with lorry drivers, disappears with them. Ah, fate has caught up with him, Bruno! He tried to stand up to fate, but fate broke him apart. Now the downward spiral, now the road to the end …

In real life, Bruno S. would say 'they threw him away' of what happened after his film success. He never acted again; he couldn't speak of Herzog except with great pain. They threw him away, but he still performs, he still sings and plays.