STROSZEK
Doug Pritchard from Albany, NY writes:
I find it frustrating that American filmmakers cannot make a film
as good as this one is. The whole story of misplaced hopes and
lost dreams on the dreary American landscape is more powerful in
it's telling than many films have been. The action of this film
moves us from birth to death in a philosophical journey of the
soul. The arrival of these obviously hopeful and distraught
people on American shores is like the rebirth many immigrants
went through when they escaped their own countries and arrived
here. Dreams of streets paved with gold and the easy credit of
American commerce is the undoing of many yet, here we see the
disaster of it all. One doesn't have to be a recent immigrant to
experience the foibles of modern credit like our characters do.
They exemplify it though and it is to their peril that they do
not understand it. The closing scene where we hear the solitary
gunshot is most powerful. That it is done near a roadside zoo
with it's caged animals is perfect because it portrays the cage
our man has put himself into. There is only one way out, he takes
it. Like many powerful financiers of the twenties who lost
everything he does the only thing which will solve his problems.
The gunshot is his goodbye to his problems and the beginning of
his new life. A shame that American studios cannot produce movies
such as this. They are in need of lessons from directors who
understand cinema and should study films of this type. Maybe they
will be able to improve the fare they offer to us.