rating: 4
Of all the movies showing at this years Edinburgh film fest, this one has my favourite title. It is lyrical and melodic, and a little absurd. Too often people miss the humour that
Werner Herzog brings to his movies, and listening to the audience during this one was a curious experience. There was laughter, but it was spread-out and discontinuous. Some things that may come across as blackly comic to some may seem tragic to others. This quality was evident in Herzogs last movie,
Bad Lieutenant (or to give it its full title: The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans), which Herzog apparently said was a movie about the bliss of evil.
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is less about evil than madness, and less about bliss than torment. It focuses on Brad McCullum (
Michael Shannon), an intense, troubled young man who lives with his mother, herself fairly batty. He is engaged to Ingrid (
Chloë Sevigny), for whom his mother barely conceals her contempt. Their story if it can be called that is told in flashback after Brad kills his mother and locks himself in his home, claiming to have hostages. He kills her with the sword that he is using as a prop in a play, where he plays a character who kills his mother. This detail is taken from a real case which inspired this story.
The police, led by Hank Havenhurst (
Willem Dafoe, in fine form as ever) try to piece together what made this guy tick, and why hed kill the person everyone agrees he loved most. We learn that he keeps flamingos (my eagles in drag), and that he never really knew his father. At one point he goes to a military hospital so can see the sick. Who in particular? Just the sick in general. He believes, in one of my favourite touches, that he has seen God in the kitchen. Who he thinks represents God I will leave you to discover. He thinks he hears His voice on the radio. At a couple of points, when his girlfriend questions what he is doing, his response is an intense so what? Maybe hes just a messed up, fairly lonely guy trying to deal with the meaninglessness of it all. However I dont think Herzogs goal is to explain the mind of this guy. In my head I see Herzog having a lot of fun trying to decide on the specifics of this nutjobs life and personality. Maybe thats all wrong: for all I know Herzog deeply empathises with Brad. Certainly it asks more questions than it answers. As always with Herzog there is some fairly striking imagery: the image in particular that springs to mind is of Brads house, with its bright pink facade and ominous cacti. The shot is intensified through repetition, until it starts to feel like a reflection of Brads troubled mind. The whole pink aesthetic (from walls to flamingos) of this suburban home adds to the nightmarish sense of the place.
The movie lists
David Lynch as executive producer, and there are hints of Lynch about it too, particularly in the scenes between Brad and his mother.
Brad Dourif, by now a Herzog favourite, appears as his ornery, prejudiced uncle. This is not a healthy family, although we only see them through Ingrids eyes, who herself only sees them through Brads. Herzog is obsessed, it seems to me, with the obsessive. From Fitzcarraldo to Timothy Treadwell (
Grizzly Man) many of his movies have dealt with intensely focussed characters. Once upon a time, he probably would have got
Klaus Kinski to play the lead role here. It is no small compliment to Shannon to say that he does just about as good a job: his intensely staring eyes appear to be looking for answers in everything, or trying to put the fear into whoever hes speaking to. I realise thats the third time Ive used the word intense in this review, but there is no other word for it. His obsession marks a dark counterpoint to the phony cheer of his suburban environment. This isnt vintage Herzog, on par with
Aguirre or
Fitzcarraldo, but it is enjoyably troubling, or troublingly enjoyable.