Signs of Life

Signs of Life is a 1968 German drama set during the Second World War. Three German soldiers are pulled back from the fighting after one of them, Stroszek, is wounded. He and his comrades Becker and Meinhard are posted to the Greek island of Kos, where they are meant to guard an old fortress used to store ammunition while Stroszek recovers. The island has seen little of the war, and the men fill their uneventful days with small, pointless tasks around the building. Stroszek marries a local woman, Nora, and for a time seems to settle, but the heat, the isolation and the lack of purpose wear him down, and his behaviour begins to alarm the islanders.

The film was written and produced by Werner Herzog, who also directed it, and it credits Achim von Arnim as a co-writer of the screenplay. It was Herzog's first feature, the opening entry in a directing career that would run to 22 films, followed by Even Dwarfs Started Small in 1971. Peter Brogle plays Stroszek, with Wolfgang Reichmann, Athina Zacharopoulou, Wolfgang von Ungern-Sternberg, Wolfgang Stumpf and Henry van Lyck in supporting roles.

Released in July 1968, the film runs 91 minutes. On TMDB it holds a rating of 6.6 out of 10 from 51 votes, a modest figure reflecting its limited reach and the specialised audience for an early work by a director then at the start of his career.