THE SICK KING OF BEER is a little “tour de farce” about a soldier who used to be and still is a beer dealer. Having passed the Vietnam war, with a shell splinter in his head, he throws himself into the dream and the madness of being “the king of beer” in a country of 200 inhabitants. Being “the king of beer” he is the only one who knows the recipe for making beer, in a country that is being dominated by a monopoly of alcohol. “He” is the only one to examine the recipe for brewing beer while illegal distillers are making residual alcohol for consumers who live in the forest. The film shows us the journey of the soldier beer king towards the only brewery of the country, in order to check again the recipe there. He is accompanied by “his second part” since he believes to be existing in two persons, and by a woman who was at his side during his life as a soldier. Together they go away, followed by four soldiers looking out for a little murder. The beer king lives for and by his memories, and halfway to his destination he is awaited in an illegal distillery where he is to make a speech at a little festivity. Here, once again his power becomes manifest although his decay as a person is predetermined, and the soldiers along with his former wife and “the second part of his” rehearse the revolt shortly before they come to the “big brewery”, making his head waggle. Beyond some figure-‘psychologization’ Der kranke Bierkönig tells a story that is crude, without uniformity in terms of film and sick; it is a story on power, the sale of women, and the “very last piece of bread”. (European Media Art Festival 1992)