WOYZECK Eastern European Cinema

Bleak but beautiful, Woyzeck is a moving, intelligent transportation of Georg Buechner’s theatrical masterpiece. The setting is a Hungarian railroad yard, where unshaven, sweatstained lug Woyzeck serves as a point man, sitting all day in a tiny wooden box by the tracks and suffering daily humiliations from his disciplinarian boss. Woyzeck’s personal life is equally unsatisfactory. His beautiful wife Maria rejects his animal attempts at sex, preferring the embraces of a local policeman. The incessant catalog of humiliations finally tips him over the edge. Aided by gorgeous cinematography and rich performances, director Janos Szasz turns the material into an intense, almost poetic chorale to the dispossessed underdog. -Derek Elley, Variety