Woyzeck (1979)

For financing reasons director Werner Herzog had to start production on this film only days after wrapping on his remake of Nosferatu the Vampire. Shot in just 18 days using the same crew and star as Nosferatu actor Klaus Kinski, Woyzeck is adapted from an unfinished play by the early 19th century German dramatist Georg Buchner. Woyzeck is the story of a German solder who goes mad and starts to have apocalyptic visions after working himself sick doing odd jobs, including being the subject of an eccentric professors experiments, all in an effort to support the child he had out of wedlock and the mother. Woyzeck finally breaks when he learns that the mother of his child is cheating on him with a handsome drum major, things don't end well. Odd and eccentric as any good Herzog film should be, Woyzeck is only 82 minutes in length, which is about perfect you wouldn't want this to be much longer. It's quite good, but also slow and strange, meant for something of a limited audience. ***