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Ever since German writer Georg Büchner penned his story about the first worker to "go postal," many plays, an opera, and several films have interpreted the doomed, exploited, impoverished Wozzeck (or Woyzeck, and here, Wodzeck) who loses his mind and commits a tragic act because of his crushingly dehumanizing job. In this cinematic interpretation by Oliver Herbrich, Wodzeck (Detlef Kügow) is a reclusive worker who operates a giant press in a factory in the industrial Ruhr Valley of western Germany. He loves Maleen (Ariane Erdelt), but even she cannot alleviate the effects of his job, and besides, she is beginning to develop an interest in another man. In this version of the story, the decline of Wodzeck is a slow-going process that tends to creep along, undermining the drama of his final breakdown.