Herzog continues

A Quest for the Sublime: The Films of Werner Herzog continues for another three weeks at the Northwest Film Center. The German filmmaker’s filmography is as interesting as it is long, so don’t miss out on your chance to see some classics on the big screen. Here is a guide to just a few of Herzog’s films you can see over the next two weeks.

Woyzeck

The deceased actor and longtime Herzog collaborator Klaus Kinski isn’t someone you would’ve wanted around your children. Imagine the craziest man you see downtown with a mouth full of acid on his way to spend a day at the Lloyd Center Mall and you might begin to grasp the insane intensity in Kinski’s eyes. This also makes him perfect for Herzog, who has employed him in the lead of many of the German director’s most memorable feature films.

Woyzeck, based on the play by George Buchner, is about a lowly soldier with a prostitute wife and an illegitimate son. Woyzeck, the soldier, has a fever, and with it comes voices from the wild. Soon nature sets him on a destructive path to his own freewill.

Wild-eyed Kinski melts into whatever costume he wears perfectly, to the point that it’s hard to picture him without it, but there is something ultra-appropriate about him donning soldier garb. This isn’t the best Kinski-Herzog venture, but it is still a tense and thought-provoking tale of a madman in an equally insane small town.

Woyzeck plays at the Whitsell Auditorium at 9 p.m. on May 10.

Cobra Verde

Francisco Manoel da Silva, aka Cobra Verde, is a feared bandit in Brazil who also doesn’t enjoy wearing shoes. He is too badass for footwear, but a sugar plantation baron unwittingly hires the infamous criminal to supervise his slaves. The employee would be a smart choice for the fat baron if he intended his underage daughters to be impregnated by the new hire.

Klaus Kinski once again stars in this elliptical and strangely beautiful story of rebellion and slavery that turns out to be one of Herzog’s strongest films to date.

After Cobra Verde plants his seed amongst the fair maidens, the slave owner becomes incensed, but he cannot kill the dangerous bandit. So he decides to send him to his certain death on a slave-trading trip to Africa.

Cobra Verde unwittingly agrees to the mission. Death doesn’t come. Instead, he is only tortured, and yes, he impregnates a lot more girls. Soon after escaping his African captors, he becomes involved in a rebellion against a demented king. This, as you can probably tell, is a must-see film.

Cobra Verde plays at the Whitsell Auditorium at 7 p.m. tonight.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

In the year 1828, a boy appeared in the streets of Nuremburg, Germany with a prayer book in one hand and a letter stating that he had never taken a step out of the house in the other. His name was Kaspar Hauser. He spoke only one sentence. The story of this young foundling soon fascinated the entire European continent, and still baffles researchers to this day.

From this true story, Herzog forged a fictional version that is often poetic, showing the young Hauser’s (played by street musician and non-actor Bruno S.) traces of nihilism in a society that pushes him into the role of a freak-show entertainer. A professor saves Hauser from the unjust circus and starts to teach Hauser about the world. But his teacher only helps introduce him to another kind of injustice: the false hope of religion, and the pretentious upper class.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser plays at the Whitsell Auditorium at 7 p.m. on May 16.