Never let it be said that Werner Herzog isn’t ambitious. He’s pulled boats over mountains (“Fitzcarraldo”), and documented his exploration of every kind of environment imaginable (see: the contrast between his documentaries “The White Diamond” and “Encounters at the End of the World,” just for one example). Now, he’s challenged us all again, dropping two bizarre concoctions of comedy and violence during the course of one film festival. Both attempt to defy expectation: one looks to utilize the deadpan humor and quiet intensity of star Nicolas Cage in a way few director’s have, while the other teams the veteran German master with Producer David Lynch, and looks to channel the off-kilter melodrama and psychological-horror of the latter’s most elusive films.
Unfortunately, Herzog breaks his streak with “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done” (no question mark, curiously) which plays like a parody of a David Lynch film; it has many Lynchian characteristics in tone and performance, but with Herzog’s own fascination with nature as an added conflict, here regarding a young man’s decent into madness and paranoia. Sounds pretty great from that description, but we assure you it’s not, and in fact with this pedigree and considering what a mess this is, ‘My Son’ should probably be considered the biggest disappointment of the festival this year.
It’s all intriguing in theory: Two cops (Willem Dafoe, Michael Peña) negotiate a possible hostage situation when Brad (Michael Shannon, crazier than in “Revolutionary Road” but not quite as delirious as he was in “Bug”) kills his mother (the immortal Grace Zabriskie) with a sword during morning coffee at the neighbor’s, and then holes up in his pink house, barking orders for pizza and proclaiming he’s keeping company with God from behind drawn shutters. The film also features Chloë Sevigny and Udo Kier as Brad’s fiance and former theater director, respectively, who tell the cops of Brad’s inexplicable behavior, originating when he returned from a fated kayaking trip in Peru. But instead of getting an unhinged, down-the-rabbit-hole experiment like “Inland Empire,” we get a flashback-heavy melodrama (haphazardly linked to the Greek tragedy “Orestes,” discussed and rehearsed for during the film) that plays like a tamer, stilted and altogether less coherent take on “Blue Velvet’s” suburban madness.
There’s lots of ideas here, and maybe some of them will stick more on a second viewing, but so much of this is just poorly acted and scripted that it can’t be seen as anything less than a misstep in the career of a great and ambitious filmmaker. [C-] – Sam Mac.
