The scene is Strasbourg, Holy Roman Empire in the sweaty July of 1518. The air is blisteringly hot, and tensions amongst the people are running equally high. Via a brief opening montage, the audience is taken on a tour through a city entrapped in scandal and desperation. Clergymen are shown meeting working women in dark alleyways overshadowed by Strasbourg cathedral. Ramshackle waifs and lepers starve in the street, while armed soldiers antagonize angry mobs around the estates of government officials. And all the while, a lone middle-aged woman, Frau Troffea, is churning butter.
I should say that this is all being presented with an obsessive amount of historical accuracy. All characters are in period appropriate clothing, the movie is shot on location in the old town of Strasbourg whenever possible, and everyone is speaking medieval Alsatian. And crucially, at least for the first half of the movie, there is no musical accompaniment; with one exception:
A leitmotif, a brief, thumping beat, that we first hear in Frau Troffea's churning. For a moment, we zoom in on Frau Troffea's face as all the sound in the scene save for the beat is tuned out. It's soft like the wind, but angry and fleeting in tempo. A simple "Boom boom boom Bi, biboom boom boom Bi, biboom" and so on.
An abrupt cut draws our attention to a pedestrian passing Frau Troffea's house. He's an unremarkable man, but he appears to be of some familiarity to Frau Troffea as he attempts to greet her as he passes by. Frau Troffea doesn't react to him however, she just continues churning, her face growing more and more intense as she keeps the pulsing beat.
We follow the man, whom we'll call Jakob, back to his home. Through context clues we learn that he's a physician, as he discusses his job with his wife, Adalie, as she prepares dinner. From Adalie's quiet demeanor and disinterested expression we gather that their marriage isn't the happiest, and Jakob quickly lets a thought trail off into silence as he realizes his words aren't reaching her. As the air inside goes cold, outside we hear a sudden commotion, a clamor of people laughing and shouting in fascination.
We cut back to Frau Troffea's house, now at dusk, and here we discover what the crowd from the last scene was so enraptured by. Everyone is gathered around Frau Troffea, who is now placed boldly in the center of the road, dancing. She's doing a strangely contemporary looking dance, very intentionally out of place for the period, a bit like walking in place, though Frau Troffea isn't good enough at dancing to put any kind of technical name to it. But for those who pay attention, they'll quickly note that the rhythm of Frau Troffea's feet is the same to which she churned butter earlier: "Boom boom boom Bi, biboom boom boom Bi, biboom"
The crowd response to Frau Troffea's performance is diverse: some are mocking her, some are trying to snap her out of whatever trance she's in, some are genuinely impressed. One man however, to Troffea's immediate side, is notably much more belligerent than everyone else. From the crowd's jeers we quickly gather that this is Frau Troffea's husband. And in a more than heated exchange we see him snap and drag his wife back into their home, as the crowd boos in disappointment. Frau Troffea never responds to her husband, or any of her detractors, she simply keeps dancing, even as her husband begins to pull her away. Just before the front door of her home closes however, the camera once again pulls close to her, again with all sound save the beat drowned out. Her face is intense but expressionless, with all her features frozen save her wide, almost terrified-looking eyes. In slow motion, we pan down to her feet, which are beaten and bloody.
The next morning Jakob is woken to the sound of someone beating his door. Rushing to his feet he throws the door open only to discover a little girl, Frau Troffea's daughter, who quickly pleads for him to come with her, because "there's something wrong with my parents."
Humoring her, Jakob follows the girl back to Frau Troffea's house, and again we see a crowd surrounding the residence, but this time the familiar jeers and shouting isn't heard. Instead, as Jakob looks around, we see people frozen in shock confusion, and fear. Jakob slowly dawns to the seriousness of the situation as the camera points us to a smaller, disparate crowd of about 7-10 people, gathered the closest to Frau Troffea's house. Unlike everyone else, they're standing in file, backs to the camera, without a trace of fear in their expression. There's a brief moment of silence, before Frau Troffea and her husband both emerge from out behind them, and they all begin dancing in synchrony.
Again, they're doing the walking in place dance Frau Troffea was doing early, but now it's much more refined. They even do a synchronized sideways shuffle and spin for flourish. It's very impressive, if not unnerving since again there's absolutely no music playing.
Jakob quickly finds himself amongst a makeshift council of government men, all of whom demand he come up with an explanation for the affliction. Acting hastily, he diagnoses the problem as "heated blood" and begin pitching cures. Frau Troffea's daughter also accompanies them, but her interjections are quickly drowned out by the old men as they discuss. While they're talking all the dancing people are still in shot in the far background. Towards the end of the scene we faintly make out more people joining them as the beat starts to quietly thump beneath the sound of the discussion.
The scene switches. We're now in an abbey following Adalie as she takes communion. She remains stoic, but clearly she's full of doubt. We learn from this scene that her and Jakob's child died of plague just a year ago, and ever since then Adalie has been reassessing her purpose in life. Being raised in a traditionalist culture she had believed her purpose as a woman was to create a family, but now her only child was dead, and she had come to realize that she doesn't love her husband. Her whole world feels empty. She can't help but wonder how much joy she sacrificed for the sake of Jakob, and wonders if it's evil of her to even think like this. The cleric taking communion remains silent throughout this scene, but eventually speaks up and it becomes clear he has ulterior motives. Subtly he trails the conversation into a carnal proposition under the guise of offering advice. The scene ends before we hear Adalie's response.
We go back to Jakob, who's been assembled in a guild hall along with several other physicians and a few of the government representatives from earlier. They're all waiting with bated breath as a team of soldiers forcefully escort the dancers into the hall. The dancers come in sync, doing something similar to that sideways walk Psy does in the Gangnam style music video. As the camera explores the room we discover that a band of pipers has been set up in a corner by the officials, and wordlessly as all the dancers are assembled, a conductor of a sort prompts them to begin playing.
The pipers play something slow, somber, and period appropriate. In total contrast to the dancers who have now formed a break dance circle. The dancers become increasingly distressed as the music plays, some beginning to scream and flail about, attempting to drown out the noise with their own. The conductor instructs the pipers to play louder in response, but Jakob stops him, reminding him that "the music must remain calm."
The longer the music goes on the more violent the situation becomes. Jakob begins arguing with the conductor, and the confusion sends the pipers' music into a frenzy; louder with a raised tempo. The dancers are now almost entirely on the floor, some doing the worm, some doing back spins, and others doing other floor dances. In haste and confusion, the soldiers reenter the room and attempt to put the dancers back on their feet, but this only sends the dancers into further belligerence. One by one, the scene starts turning, outsiders begin joining the dancers, first the soldiers, then the pipers, then the officials and the physicians. Only Jakob escapes, running for his life out the guild hall as a mob of enraged dancers chases him.
The scene ends with an aerial wide shot of the guildhall exterior which is now literally bursting with dancers poring out of each and every doorway, some defenestrating themselves out the windows, still dancing on the way down. And all the while as the scene fades away, the beat is playing, but it crescendos, louder and echoing, as if being played by an army of percussionists. "Boom boom boom Bi, biboom boom boom Bi, biboom"
From this point onwards we have abandoned any sense of historical truism and have fully shifted to basically a zombie movie but in the 16th century and the zombies are dancing.
In deliberate parallel to the opening we now see another montage of Strasbourg, now completely overtaken by the dancers as pedestrians flee in terror. It ends on a dolly shot moving towards Jakob's house, as a hand from off screen knocks on the door, in rhythm with the beat.
Adalie gets up from a chair in her bedroom and wipes her face, it looks like she's been crying. She moves cautiously to the door, recognizing from the noise that there's something going on outside, but not fully knowing what it is, and also not being fully prepared to greet someone in this state. We expect her to be overtaken by a mob of dancers when she opens the door; but propping the door halfway open, all Adalie finds is Frau Troffea alone, standing eerily still. Adalie snorts up her tears as she speaks, trying her best to be cordial, but Troffea doesn't reply, simply staring at her silently. Finally Adalie loses her patience and asks "what are you doing here" to which Troffea responds by closing in, staring deep into her eyes, and in the first piece of dialogue we've heard from her, she responds: "We just want to have a good time."
Cut back to Jakob, who's embroiled in a chase. He's prone behind an overturned shop stand in a market square, which has been overrun by dancers. The following scene plays out like a stealth sequence in an action game. In one long, unbroken shot, Jakob crawls between stalls and refuse as around him the dancers make a ruin out of the square. The dancers aren't mindless monsters, it becomes clear especially through this scene that they're acting out on a sort of pent up aggression, which is reflected in the literal violence they commit to their surroundings. And of course, all of this is choreographed so that the violence is on beat and presented as a circa early 2010s era pop-hip-hop dance.
Eventually of course, a dancer finds Jakob and it escalates into another chase. Here Jakob starts to actually fight back, making a makeshift club out of a discarded wooden plank. He manages to knock one dancer down, but she turns it into a break dancing move and jumps back on her feet with no hands. Still, in the brief interlude this happens Jakob manages to find his escape down a back alleyway.
The alley takes him back to his home street, but when he gets there he discovers that yet another mob has assembled in front of it. Thinking on his feet, he takes a cue from Shaun of the Dead and starts mimicking the dancers to squeeze past them. He's offbeat, and clearly not as good a dancer as everyone else, but he's just good enough that he goes unnoticed until the exact second he manages to get inside his house and shut the door.
Immediately he starts calling for Adalie, but he finds the house distressingly quiet. Eventually after searching the whole first floor, he pauses to hear footsteps on the floor above, footsteps moving in time with the beat. By now the audience has caught on to what's happened, but Jakob seems either unaware or in denial. He breathes heavily, in what could either be relief or sheer terror, as he climbs the stairs to Adalie.
When Jakob finally finds her, Adalie is sitting at the foot of their bed, Frau Troffea is standing beside her with a hand on her shoulder. Adalie stands up, tapping her foot in time with the rhythm, eventually she starts swinging her arms, then she starts shuffling. Jakob is frozen in a state of shock, and the two women descend on him, pushing him face down to the floor and pinning his limbs. As he screams in terror, they start mouthing the beat staring deep into his eyes. Eventually the beat starts worming its way into Jakob's mind, as all other sounds are deafened once again.
The screen goes black, but the beat continues. It starts to sound a bit different after a short moment, more artificial as if produced by a drum machine. In the first interruption of the beat itself, a snare comes in to compliment it, then the beat abruptly cuts all together and a descending series of simple synth chords lead us into a chorus. Adaile, Jakob, and Frau Troffea appear in the street, dancers poised behind them. In sync with the synth chords someone in the back mouths along "party rock!" And then the entire crowd, who again up until this point have only been speaking in medieval Alsatian, begin lip syncing and clapping along to the following English chorus:
"Party rockers in the house tonight~ everybody just have a good time~ and we gon' make you lose your mind~ we just want to see you: shake that."
For the entire rest of the movie, from this moment until the credits roll, "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO will be constantly playing. The song will be remixed in such a way that it can be seamlessly looped endlessly, with it getting gradually more distorted and evil sounding the longer it goes on for.
The rest of the movie is like a sick cross of a Dreamworks ending dance sequence and a complete massacre of a kind I can't find a simile for but it's bad. For a brief sequence the cinematography style of the movie changes to look less like a thriller film and more like a music video, flashing between various scenes of familiar characters dancing along to the music while hideous violence occurs in the background.
Eventually the army is called into Strasbourg and they begin assembling barricades around the major cross ways. But the dancers overtake them by doing gymnastic moves over the walls. At the climactic finale, the dancers siege the cathedral of Strasbourg, where the priest who took communion for Adalie and Frau Troffea's daughter are held up.
We see the priest try to take charge over the survivors, but the orders he's barking are drowned out by LMFAO. And besides, no one seems to be paying attention to him. Frau Troffea's daughter is crying underneath the pews.
Eventually the dancers beat the door down and poor into the cathedral, immediately assimilating the survivors into their brood. The priest snatches the daughter and tries to bring her to safety up the bell tower, but the dancers cut them off at the stairwell. The priest is overtaken, but the daughter gets away and scrambles outside to the street.
Just then, an armored cavalry rolls into the city with clubs and shields, and they begin beating the fight out of the dancers. The movie ends on their brawl, with neither side appearing to be a clear winner. A drone shot carries us into the sky as chaos unfolds down on the streets below. As this goes on, the ending sequence of "Party Rock Anthem" where Redfoo and Skyblu sing "oh-oh, oh oh" over and over plays. Eventually the backing track goes quiet, and all we hear is their vocals, which now sound haunting and distant. We cut to black.
A brief text card tells us of the historical aftermath of the plague: "The surviving dancers were taken on a pilgrimage to Saint Vitus' shrine 30 miles from Strasbourg, there they were given rites and prayed for, which eventually cured them of whatever was afflicting them. The plague lasted for 3 months, potentially hundreds of people died of exhaustion, and the exact cause for it was never identified."
The credits roll. And for the first time since Party Rock Anthem started playing, we hear another song as the cast names start scrolling:
"Sorry For Party Rocking"
