Lebenszeichen

A wounded German paratrooper named Stroszek (Peter Brogle) is sent to the quiet island of Kos with his wife Nora (Athina Zacharopoulou), a Greek nurse, and two other soldiers recovering from minor wounds.

The fortress which gives the film's main setting is a real 14th-century fortress built by the Knights Hospitaller. Herzog's grandfather, Rudolf Herzog, lived and worked for several years as an archaeologist at this site, and published translations of the ancient Greek engravings which appear in the film. The old Turkish man who appears in the film with a written translation was the last surviving worker from Rudolf Herzog's archaeological project.

I am not as crazy about Herzog as some people. Some of his movies I like, and I actually tend to prefer his documentaries. This film was alright and quite good for a first feature. I love the fact he took his father's work and translated it to a film. That is so cool to keep that connection. Somewhere I heard a rumor that this film influenced "The Shining". I don't see it... and I can't seem to be able to confirm it. How strange if true.

Signs of Life is Werner Herzog's very first feature film and also one of his best. The script may have even inspired Stephen King's novel The Shining. In Signs of Life we have an injured soldier and his wife working as the caretakers of a military fortress on a Greek island. The soldier eventually goes mad with boredom and tries to kill his wife and everyone else.

Werner Herzog wrote the award winning script in 1964 and made the film in 1967 with only $20,000 at age twenty-five with a stolen 35mm movie camera. Herzog's script is amazing and all of the actors perform flawlessly. Signs of Life has great photography and a great use of Greek music and has Herzog's distinctive slow pace which may seem like torture to the average viewer who's been forced-fed a steady diet of fast food images.

I greatly admire Werner Herzog. While I have a long way to go in catching up on his films, all those I've seen to date - whether fiction or documentary - I've absolutely loved. It stands to reason, however, that not all a filmmaker's pictures will be equal, or equally appealing to a viewer. Despite myself, 'Signs of life' is the first of the man's features I've watched that just doesn't make a major impression with me. The filming locations are lovely, and I appreciate Thomas Mauch's cinematography. I regret to say that I don't particularly get anything else out of this; I altogether struggled to even stay awake while watching.

In terms of both content and film-making I recognize the underpinnings of the style, the command of the medium, that Herzog would develop and indeed perfect in very short order hereafter. Yet in this instance there is no meaningful plot or character development until the last third of the runtime. At that point 'Signs of life' is more actively engaging, more strongly holding of one's attention. Even then the story is a little light, though, and all that would have been necessary for the picture at large to have stood out more would have been for the progression of Stroszek's condition to have been earnestly drawn out over more of the preceding length. As it is, the shift comes across as too sudden in the narrative, and therefore less than natural, believable, or convincing.

I do like this film, and think it's worth watching, especially for Herzog fans. This is a showcase of where he was so early in his career, much as 'Dark Star' is for John Carpenter, 'Stereo' is for David Cronenberg, and so on. In much the same fashion, though, 'Signs of life' also lacks the finesse, and fullness of vision, that would let it truly shine, and by that token it's not necessarily so essential a viewing experience as are many if not most of those to follow. This is, still, a fine way to spend ninety minutes - only, much less than wholly perfect or captivating.

I first saw this film in 1969 in Bangalore (India) in a German film festival. The film was unheralded, being the first feature from an unknown director. However, the film made an everlasting impression on me, and I considered it among 2 or 3 of the best films I had seen till then. I kept track of Werner Herzog films ever since, and have been seeing them all I could lay my hands on. Even today, I'll put it as among the 10 best films I have ever seen, and it remains my favorite Herzog movie. The film is sheer poetry. It's a film about 3 characters'(2 soldiers and wife of one of them) boredom in an isolated Greek island, and how each one handles it. While one of the soldiers snaps up at the end, and tries to destroy everything in his impotent fury - managing only to kill a donkey ultimately - the second soldier keeps himself and first soldier's wife sane by just being raucously funny. I found the story, direction, camera-work and acting fascinating,and far from boring, as suggested by some reviews. I believe, Herzog has been influenced by India's Satyajit Ray in his style of presentation. He is one of the 3 most uncompromising film directors of the world in last 50 years, the other 2 being Ingmar Bergman and Robert Bresson, and his first feature is among his best.

into a strange culture, in this case WW II German soldiers occupying a Greek island, three of them recuperating in an ancient fortress while a Nazi garrison is billeted in the town below. Herzog captures the exotic setting with brilliant photography, and at the same time the strangeness not only of culture clash but ultimately of the war itself. Intense Greek music on the soundtrack and the crystalline sunlight bring a sharp focus on the madness that comes to inhabit Stroszek's mind, the madness of seeing through what has been done in the name of the fatherland. Herzog's first major film is as much political meditation as it is psychological travelogue.