Review: My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
Two homicide detectives arrive at the scene of a murder. A woman has been stabbed through with a saber in a suburban San Diego home. A man walks casually through the crowd outside the house drinking coffee out of a large mug with the words ‘Razzle Dazzle’ imprinted on it. He looks at one of the detectives and says, ‘razzle them, razzle them, razzle dazzle them.’ The man walks to the house across the street, has a conversation with a couple Flamingo’s, calling them his ‘eagles in drag,’ and enters the house. Soon after the detectives learn that he is the victim’s son and the murder suspect.
So begins My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, the latest from Werner Herzog. Produced by David Lynch, it is one of the oddest, most baffling pictures to bare either of the outlandish auteurs names. Most of the film consists of flashbacks via police interviews with witnesses and friends of the killer, named Brad and played by Michael Shannon. Through these flashbacks we see Brad’s strange behavior leading up to the murder. According to his fiance, Ingrid (Chloe Sevigny), Brad started to act different after a trip to Peru. The scenes in Peru however show a man who is clearly already a little off kilter, and seem like nothing more than an excuse for Herzog to go back to one of his favorite locations and the site of his greatest achievements, Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo.
Shannon was absolutely terrific in his few scenes in last years Revolutionary Road. There he played someone who was supposedly crazy and had combative relationship with his parents. Here he is completely unhinged. His big eyes and shaggy hair make him look the part of a lunatic. He rambles quasi-philosophical gibberish to whomever will listen. He speaks of God often, and claims that God is the Quaker Oats man. He lives at home with his mother and works as an actor in a rendition of the Greek play Orestes, in which a man also kills his mother with a sword.
Brad is not the only wacko in the film. His mother, played by Lynch veteran Grace Zabriskie, fuels their strange relationship which makes Norman Bates’ relationship with his mom look like Ernesto Borgdine in Marty. Character actor Udo Kier, who plays creepy better than anyone, plays the theatre director. Perhaps the nuttiest character is Brad’s ‘Uncle Ted’, played by Brad Dourif. Dourif, who was the bookie in Herzog’s other latest, the superior Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, seems to get inspiration from Dennis Hopper’s madman in Lynch’s great Blue Velvet. Uncle Ted lives amongst the redwoods and raises dozens of Ostriches (which Herzog obviously takes great pleasure in shooting). He gives his nephew his sword, for a prop in the play, and then berates him for being an actor.
My Son, My Son also seems to draw inspiration from Blue Velvet in its dialogue, which is naturalistic and awkward. This especially comes out in the interviews between Detective Hank Havenhurst (Willem Dafoe) and Ingrid. She is just an innocent San Diego girl and seems shocked her fiance would do such a thing. Why she would even be involved with Brad in the first place seems inexplicable. His mother interrupts them in bed to bring brownies and watches them eat. When Ingrid tells Brad they need to get away, he tells her he’ll buy the house next door, which is not for sale.
Herzog’s goal seems to be to create a mood of impending doom. Conventional film-making and story-telling is clearly not a goal. There is no climax, no character development and basically no plot. Some scenes end with the characters freezing and looking at the camera while Herzog will hold the shot for what seems like nearly a minute. The effect is like an old, living photograph showing strange people from the past. The setting is modern but the story is ancient and mystical. Walking out of the theater my initial thought was, ‘I have no fucking clue what I just watched, but I enjoyed it.’ This is not one of Herzog’s great films, but it is certainly interesting. In an age when most movies deliver varying levels of predictability, it is refreshing to see Herzog remain abstract and continue to take risks. Razzle them Werner, dazzle them, razzle dazzle them.
