Movie Review: Meeting Gorbachev

Meeting Gorbachev *** / *****

Directed by: Werner Herzog and André Singer.

 

The approach of Werner Herzog and Andre Singer in Meeting Gorbachev is fairly simple and straightforward – I’ve seen the film described as Werner Herzog reads Gorbachev’s Wikipedia page, and while that is slightly unfair, it’s also kind of true. The target audience for this film seems to be people who don’t know a lot about the USSR’s final leader – either because they didn’t live through the era, or did, and didn’t pay too much attention to Gorbachev, except as the leader of the big, bad Soviets. The film is interested in rehabbing that image a little bit – making it clear that he deserves as much, if not more, credit for ending the Cold War as Reagan, Bush and everyone else in the West. That case has been made – more than once in better ways by this point, so much so that’s it’s not even that controversial anymore. This film is essentially Herzog recounting Gorbachev’s life and legacy – either at the audience or directly to Gorbachev himself – now in his late 80s, but still sharp as a tack.

 

Because the film runs a fleet 90 minutes, it offers really only a high level view of Gorbachev and his life – pretty much dispensing with everything until the mid-1980s in about 5 minutes, to focus on Gorbachev’s time in office – how his efforts at reform helped to transform Soviet Society, and how it led really to the USSR’s dissolution. It looks at the Cold War, and Nuclear Proliferation – which seems to be of most interest to Herzog than anything else.

 

The strange thing about the film is even though Gorbachev is still obviously very smart, and remembers everything – the interviews with him aren’t as interesting as they should be. Does he not understand the translation? Does he not want to offend the current Russian government? Is he just not as interested in some of the things Herzog is asking about? I’m not sure – but the film is probably more insightful either when Herzog is talking himself to the audience, or when he’s doing interviews with others who were there at the time – either on the American or German sides of all these talks.

 

The film moves quickly through the years when Gorbachev was in power – keeping a light tone throughout. It is admittedly more than a little funny as Herzog details the few years leading up to Gorbachev taking over power – where one ancient Soviet leader after another takes control, for a year or so at a time, before they die  - until he finally takes over. Then it breezes through the rest of the time there. You wish some of these discussions went a little deeper – that Herzog seemed willing to push back on anything Gorbachev said (like Chernobyl for example) – but he seems more than content to simply let Gorbachev spin his own narrative, sometimes injecting in voiceover.

 

There is, of course, nothing particularly new here. There are no revelations here that couldn’t be gleamed elsewhere before. Even in the last act, which takes on more emotional resonance than the other parts of the film when it focuses on Gorbachev’s beloved wife – who died in 1999 – relies on footage from a different documentary for some of that emotional punch.

 

Still, I do think there is value in looking at the past, to see if we can learn something about the difficult political situation we are currently in – with tensions between Russia and America becoming high (except when it comes to their leaders, who are chummy). And there is always value in listening to Herzog – who never found a simple, boring way to say anything. You kind of wish this film went deeper than it does – but even as it is, it’s interesting and entertaining.

Classic Movie Review: Woyzeck (1979)

Woyzeck (1979)

Directed by: Werner Herzog.

Written by: Werner Herzog based on the play by Georg Büchner.

Starring: Klaus Kinski (Woyzeck), Eva Mattes (Marie), Wolfgang Reichmann (Captain), Willy Semmelrogge (Doctor), Josef Bierbichler (Drum Major), Paul Burian (Andres), Volker Prechtel (Handwerksbursche), Dieter Augustin (Marktschreier), Irm Hermann (Margret).

 

One of the reasons why almost all of Werner Herzog’s best films of the last 30 years are documentaries is because when he lost Klaus Kinski, he lost one of the only actors who was able to match the level of insanity that Herzog needed in his fiction films (the one exception is of course Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant:: Port of Call, New Orleans). The pair of them made five films together – of which Woyzeck was the third, and far and away the least, of these collaborations. There just isn’t very much here in this sleight film, about a man beaten down by life until he ends up murdering his wife. These two combined to make two of the all-time great portraits of madness – Aguirre the Wrath of God and Fitzcaraldo – but Woyzeck never comes close to matching them, and I cannot help but think that perhaps Kinski is even miscast.

 

In the film, Kinski plays the title character – a put upon soldier, tormented by those above him in the army, for reasons the movie never really tries to explain (he is on an all pea diet for example, but no one will say why). He is pushed around, abused, beaten and disrespected – but it isn’t until his wife cheats on him with a drum major that he really, truly loses it – leading to a slow motion climax, which is just about the only thing in the film that works.

 

Kinski was, of course, brilliant at playing insane characters – perhaps because he was kind of nuts himself (Herzog’s documentary on him – My Best Fiend is a better use of your time than this, and documents their relationship). Here though, his Woyzeck seems insane at the start of the film, so his descent into madness doesn’t really mean much – he’s already there. If Woyzeck is supposed to be an everyman, driven insane by the system, pushing down on the common man, than the film fails – because Kinski never really seems normal here.

 

Herzog is adapting a play by George Buchner, but his screenplay is odd, as many scenes play out without much in the way of dialogue, making the action confusing, and Woyzeck’s motivations unknowable. The film was made in the immediate aftermath of Herzog and Kinski’s other (and better) 1979 film, Nosferatu – Kinski using the fatigue of that film to his advantage here. Yet the film never really comes together. It’s only 82 minutes long, and that slow motion climax really is something to behold – yet the film is more of interest to Herzog/Kinski completest than anyone else. You’d be better off watching anything else the pair did together than this one though.

Movie Review: Salt and Fire

Salt and Fire * ½ / *****

Directed by: Werner Herzog.    

Written by: Werner Herzog based on the short story by Tom Bissell.

Starring: Veronica Ferres (Laura Sommerfeld), Michael Shannon (Matt Riley), Gael García Bernal (Dr. Fabio Cavani), Volker Michalowski (Dr. Arnold Meier), Lawrence Krauss (Krauss / Aristidis), Danner Ignacio Márquez Arancibia (Huascar), Gabriel Márquez Arancibia (Atahualpa).

 

It’s been the case for a while now – probably nearly 30 years – which Werner Herzog’s documentaries are usually better than his features. Occasionally, we get something as batshit crazy genius as Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans – but more often than not, we get films either don’t quite capture that crazy Herzog brilliance (Rescue Dawn) or else are nearly incoherent (My Son, My Son What Have You Done?). And yet, until Salt and Fire, I wouldn’t say that I saw a boring feature from Herzog. Yes, he’s made a few boring docs – but his features always contain something of interest, even if they don’t work. Not so much with Salt and Fire, which doesn’t make sense on any logical level, and is dull to boot.

 

In the film, Veronica Ferres plays Laura Sommerfeld – who is travelling with two fellow colleagues to an unnamed country to examine an environmental catastrophe. When she arrives, all three of them are promptly kidnapped – and while their captors force her two (male) colleagues (including Gael Garcia Bernal – I guess doing Herzog a favor) to sit in a room and do nothing, they want something from Laura. It isn’t long before the person in charge of this kidnapping reveals himself as Matt Riley (Michael Shannon), a wealthy CEO of a major corporation, who he says is responsible for everything wrong. He then drives Laura out into the middle of nowhere, and drops her off with two blind local children. They have supplies enough for a week, but no way out. They are in the middle of a giant salt plain (the real one is in Bolivia, where they filmed). And Laura must survive.

 

Logically, nothing much about Salt and Fire makes a whole lot of sense. When Riley eventually does come clean about his motives and why he did everything, it sounds ridiculous. How Laura responds to that monologue by Riley is even more ridiculous. Yet, lack of logic hasn’t always hampered previous Herzog films – who has specialized in telling the stories of people others may think insane. Here though, he presents his characters as the sane ones – and that hurts the film immensely.

 

As a location, the giant salt flats in a great one – and a perfect one for Herzog. He has often specialized in showing us locations on earth that feel like a completely alien planet – and these flats certainly qualify. And yet, there is a numbing, vast sameness to them that doesn’t particularly make them a great setting for a full length movie, where the location is foregrounded. There are moments of Salt and Fire that look amazing. But the whole thing feels so hollow.

 

Werner Herzog is a great filmmaker – and a wildly prolific one. Rare is a year that doesn’t go by that doesn’t bring at least one doc from him. But I almost wish he’d slow down a little – stop trying to make the features, and spend a little more time on the docs. On that side, he’s almost become a parody of himself – and on the feature side, he seems completely lost. I have no doubt that Herzog will make a great documentary again someday – I have huge doubts if he’ll ever make another great fictional feature.

Classic Movie Review: Lessons of Darkness (1992)

Lessons of Darkness (1992)

Directed by: Werner Herzog.

 

It’s interesting to go back and watch a Werner Herzog documentary from before the world turn him into a meme – and he so fully embraced it. Aside from his masterful Into the Abyss (and the On Death Row side project), I am always stuck wondering in all post-Grizzly Man Herzog docs just how seriously he is taking his strange narration, and how much he is simply embracing the image that many have of him. This isn’t a wholly bad thing – it’s made some of his work, like Encounters at the End of the World both insightful and hilarious, but at other times it’s a distraction. Watching his 54 minute documentary Lessons of Darkness from 1992 – from before Herzog was a celebrity – is eye-opening in many ways. First, it is one of Herzog’s best, most visually striking documentaries – a brilliant look at the Kuwaiti oil fields in flames – presented with little voiceover narration or context. But it’s also interesting to look at the filmmaker Herzog was at the time – his voice is over much of the first half, and then almost none in the second – as if even Herzog has been struck dumb by the devastation he sees. It’s a choice that I doubt he would make today.

 

Herzog doesn’t really provide context for his documentary – instead, approaching it in terms of his voiceover as if he were an alien visitor, unsure of what he is seeing playing out on this strange planet. Split into 13 chapters, Herzog starts with shots of Kuwait’s capital before the war – a beautiful, old city. We then flash to the familiar CNN footage – night vision green – of bombs going off all throughout the city. From there, spends much of the rest of the time surveying the damage. Most of the shot in the movie are taken from helicopter flying above the massive wreckage – and Herzog’s typical voiceover only interrupts in order to provide necessary information – like the massive lakes and rivers we are seeing, although they appear to be water, are actually oil. He speaks to only two people – a Kuwaiti woman who says she witnessed her two adult sons tortured to death in front on her, and since then she hasn’t been able to speak (she does speak in the film, but in a barely audible whisper – that Herzog doesn’t subtitle) – and another woman, shown with her young son, who talks about soldiers bursting into her home, and throwing her son to the ground and stepping on his head – and how he has not spoken since either. These are powerful anti-war statements – made perhaps more powerful by the fact Herzog provides zero context for them – the woman talk of “soldiers” – but nothing else (like, where those soldiers were from). Herzog will follow the lead of the woman and the young boy for the second half of the film – not speaking for long stretches of time – as if he too can longer speak having witnessed the horror of war that he has seen.

 

The last third of the film is the most visually striking, as Herzog and his crew go to the oilfields themselves as they are burning – massive columns of fire shooting up from the desert – and the various firefighters and oil workers on hand to try and put out the flames, and cap the wells. Then, oddly, we see them setting more fires – and Herzog’s voiceover returns – confused about what we are seeing, and why? Didn’t they just put out the fires? Why are they setting more (the film never answers).

 

Lessons of Darkness ranks as one of Herzog’s finest documentarians for several reasons. One is, like much of his work, he is more than willing to go where many others would refuse to. This isn’t safe areas in which is he filming, but Herzog is one of those madmen who will not be stopped, and somehow always ends up unscathed. Second, because I do think it represents Herzog’s worldview – as seen in other films – in a more simple, straight-forward way. Had Herzog made an overtly political film – critical of this specific war, the film would instantly be dated. But he didn’t do that – and as a result, the film becomes some deeper, more universal – a treatise on wars and the illogical nature of them in general – much like he would do years later when examining the death penalty – where it wasn’t so much this one case, but the idea of the state putting someone to death – or more accurately, the state asking people to put others to death.

 

Herzog is such a prolific director, it’s impossible to keep up with everything he’s done – I’ve seen 20 of his films – which according to IMDB, only leaves 49 (and growing) to go. As anyone who makes that many films is, Herzog is inconsistent – but when he’s at his best, he can be terrific. He’s at his best with Lessons of Darkness.

Movie Review: Into the Inferno

Into the Inferno

Directed by: Werner Herzog.

Written by: Werner Herzog.

 

A part of me would like a little less Werner Herzog in the recent documentaries directed by Werner Herzog. Probably since around the time of Grizzly Man (2005) – Herzog’s celebrity status has grown – and Herzog has embraced it – doing voice work in The Simpsons and The Penguins of Madagascar, showing up in other roles as either himself, or someone else – memorably in Jack Reacher as the bad guy – and he’s become on a fixture in internet memes and parodies – as many find humor in Herzog voice and narration – the grimer the better. Into the Inferno is his second documentary this year – following Lo and Behold, about the internet, and the second time in which Herzog basically skims the surface of his subject matter, providing an interesting glimpse into one person or culture, then moving on to the next. When Herzog is in this mode, his subject is himself as much as anything – and he excels at finding people who, like him, are obsessive types. In Into the Inferno, he goes around the world, looking at active volcanoes, and those who live and work around them – the ancient tribes whose religion revolves around the volcano, and the scientist who study them, knowing full well it may kill them. Herzog has been obsessed with obsession his entire career – this is the man who made Fitzcaraldo after all, about a man who obsessively wanted to get a huge boat from one Amazon river to another, and decided that, what the hell, I’ll do that too.

 

There is much to admire about Into the Inferno. The film is available on Netflix for all to see, which will give the film a wider audience than a theatrical release, but doesn’t really help the film. Like Terrence Malick’s Voyage of Time – which I saw at TIFF last month – Into the Inferno is the type of film that would certainly play better on the biggest screen imaginable. The shot of the lava are mesmerizing in their beauty, and humbling in their destructive power. The people Herzog interviewes all know that these volcanoes may end up killing them – but they cannot help themselves. They are drawn to them, and they will not let go. Herzog understands, and admires this about them.

 

To a certain extent though, I wish Herzog would slow down a little bit in films like Into the Inferno and Lo and Behold. Both of his 2016 have many different interview subjects that a filmmaker like Herzog could really do a deep dive with – and come up with something truly fascinating. Like him, they are obsessed with something and dedicate the entirety of their lives to it – but sometimes in these films, it seems like Herzog is far more fascinated with himself than anyone else – that in only spending 10-15 minutes on one person, or one tribe, etc. – he can keep the ultimate subject of the film on as himself. His narration at times is still quite funny and insightful – but at others, he seems to be playing for the crowd.

 

In lesser hands, Herzog’s films would end up as little more than narcissistic ramblings. What saves them in Herzog’s case is the fact that he has a sense of humor about himself, and the fact that he acknowledges just how meaningless he is – how meaningless we all are as individuals, in any single film. Still, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my favorite film of his since Grizzly Man (and one of the very best of his career) is his death row documentary Into the Abyss (2011) – a film that spent its entire runtime on one story, and had Herzog on the sidelines for much of it (that film is so grim, that even the meme makers stayed away). It also included some of Herzog’s most trenchant and insightful observations – a simple question about a squirrel had the subject, and me in the audience, in tears. The spin off project, On Death Row (made up of four, one hour docs, consisting of interviews Herzog did while trying to settle on a subject for Into the Abyss) is likewise moving and profound.

 

Herzog remains a fascinating documentary filmmaker (his days as an interesting fiction filmmaker may be behind him – as much as I love Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans) – and Into the Inferno is a fine example of his work. But it doesn’t rise to the level his best work – I think because nothing in it holds his attention for as long as he himself does.

Movie Review: Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World

Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World

Directed by: Werner Herzog.

 

There are only a few directors that I would want to spend 98 minutes exploring the internet with – but German madman Werner Herzog is certainly one of them. There have been quite a few films about the dangers of the internet – and they tend to end up being alarmist in the extreme – like Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children for example. There can also be films that are too idealistic about the wonders of the internet – and how it can connect the world, etc. The interesting thing about Werner Herzog’s Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World, is that Herzog doesn’t seem to know all that much about the internet – which actually makes sense, as I find it hard to imagine Herzog spending too much time sitting in front of a computer screen, checking Twitter and Facebook. He is among the most prolific directors working – he has 69 directing credits according to IMDB, and always seems to have a few films on the go. He is fascinated with other people, and their stories, and has a unique interviewing style – some of his questions are more subtly profound than we normally get in interviews, and there are moments when his interview subjects generally seem taken aback by them – as if they never thought about things that way. At his best – like in a film like Into the Abyss, one of the best true crime documentaries you will ever see (that sadly didn’t get as much attention as it deserved back in 2011), he takes something we’ve seen a lot before, and comes up with something completely different with it.

 

Lo and Behold isn’t that good – in part, I think, because the subject of the internet is so big that Herzog barely seems to be able to scratch the surface in the 98 minutes he dedicates to it in the film. I almost wish that this was going to be something like a 10 part documentary series – so that many of the people Herzog talks to would get an hour to themselves to expand on their thoughts. Herzog doesn’t rehash the same tired arguments about social media, pornography, etc. Instead he looks at the bigger picture – how the internet started, what it has already done for us, the potential it can do in the future – and perhaps the dangers and benefits moving forward. Herzog isn’t naïve enough to think we can put the genie back in the bottle – and doesn’t want to. He does want to know where we, as a species, are headed however.

 

Herzog separates the film into 10 chapters, and basically, he switches back and forth from good stories to bad. Herzog delights in talking with brilliant people – and he certainly does that, when talking to some of the people who help design the technology that allowed the internet to start – and there are moments when you almost feel like a digital utopia is on the way. Then, of course, Herzog, plunges us into despair when discussing troll culture – using a heartbreaking story of a young woman who died in a traffic accident, and how a picture of her dead body went viral, causing people to mock her parents, hiding behind their anonymity of course, which makes you want to unplug altogether. There are even some segments when he seems to be suggesting both at once – driverless cars that will make your commute stress free and efficient, unless of course, something goes wrong causing massive accidents the passenger is powerless to control.

 

Herzog’s greatest strength in documentaries like this is his unusual sense of humor – and his ability to delve into complex subjects and larger meanings, without the whole enterprise devolving into pretentious garbage. While I think his increasing celebrity, which started with Grizzly Man more than a decade ago, is a mixed blessing at best – a lot more people know who Werner Herzog is, and his amusing, intellectual ramblings, than actually watch his films, it can help a great deal in a film like this – it allows him to ask the big questions, and still have a sense of humor about it.

 

The film is funded by a corporate sponsor – a cybersecurity firm – but they had to have known that when you hire someone like Werner Herzog to make a film, he’s going to do whatever the hell he wants to do – which he does. I’m not sure that Herzog has really uncovered all that much new here – the basic conclusion of the film is that the internet is both a wonderful and horrible place that has already fundamentally changed human beings, and will continue to do so. We already knew that, didn’t we? And yet, I enjoyed watching Herzog head down the rabbit hole once more. No one quite does it like her does.

Movie Review: Happy People: A Year in the Taiga

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga
Directed by: Dmitry Vasyukov & Werner Herzog.
Written by: Rudolph Herzog & Werner Herzog & Dmitry Vasyukov.

Werner Herzog is one of the mad geniuses of the cinema. Reading his autobiography, Life Itself, following his death, I was struck my an observation Roger Ebert made about Herzog – that he has never made an unworthy film, never made a film simply for commercial reasons. Ebert is correct of course – even if I haven’t loved all the Herzog films I have seen (and although I have seen many, there are many more I haven’t seen – he’s one of the most prolific filmmakers in the world). Herzog goes out and makes precisely the film he wants to make each and every time. So even if I remain unimpressed by films like My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done? or The Wild Blue Yonder, or a few others, I admire that Herzog remains true to himself. He makes the films he wants to make – you can like them or not. I don’t think he really cares.

With Happy People: A Year in the Taiga, what Herzog did was take the four documentaries made by director Dmitry Vasyukov about trappers in Siberia, and edited them together into one, coherent 90 minute film – and added his own narration, which is invaluable, because Herzog has perhaps the best voice of anyone in the world. It’s so calm and confident, and seemingly intelligent, that sometimes you miss how hilarious the narration can be – like in the wonderful documentary Encounters at the End of the World, set in Antarctica. Happy People isn’t quite on that same level – it’s more matter of fact than that. But it is gorgeous, fascinating, little documentary.

The Taiga is a huge area in Siberia, where trappers have been plying their trade for generations in pretty much the same way. True, now they use snowmobiles and chainsaws, but aside from that they pretty much go about their trade as they always have. Their traps are primitive – but they are that way because they are more effective than anything man has come up with since. They make their own skies, because doing so allows to travel greater distances with ease than factory made ones. They spend months on their own, moving from one hut to another, checking on their traps for the sable they catch, with no one but their dogs for company. And their dogs do everything for them – without the dogs, they couldn’t survive. No matter what the political situation is, it doesn’t affect these men. The most lighthearted moment comes when a politician shows up in the small village on a boat asking for re-election – and finds for the most part, no one cares, until he breaks out the flour that the villagers want.

I am fascinated by a movie like this – that shows a way of life much different than most people live. It is a simple life, but as Herzog (and the title) point out, it is a happy life –precisely the life these people want to live. They do what the want, they are experts at their craft, and have no plans on changing. There is nothing wrong with that.

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga is a simple film. The footage by Vasyukov is beautiful – especially in the winter months. And it shows us the type of people we rarely see in films. While the film does not rank among the best of Herzog’s career, it is yet another example of him doing precisely what he wants to do. How can you argue with that?

TV Movie Review: On Death Row

On Death Row
Directed by: Werner Herzog.

Werner Herzog wanted to make a documentary about the death penalty in America – and in 2011 he made Into the Abyss, a stunning film about crime, punishment, violence and poverty in America, that was for me, the best documentary of the year. But before Herzog settled on the story of Michael Perry and Jason Burkett for Into the Abyss, he considered four other cases – and even conducted interviews with the offenders. Not wanting to waste these interviews, Herzog decided to make four mini-documentaries, each 50 minutes long, about their stories. While none provide the depth of Into the Abyss, all four stories are well told by Herzog and simply add to his basic premise – that the death penalty is wrong, even for offenders who are guilty of the crimes they committed. As he says at the start of each of these mini-docs >As a German, coming from a different historical background, and a visitor to the United States, I respectfully disagree with the practice of the death penalty`.

Herzog tells each of the five inmates her interviews over these four films that just because he`s here, it doesn’t mean he likes them – or that he has any interest in trying to prove their innocence – which two of them proclaim. He wants to examine their cases and what led them to do what they do, and what the experience of being on death row is like. He is not really making an advocacy documentary.

The first doc concentrates on James Barnes, one of the only people who will fully admit to his guilt. He was convicted of murdering his ex-wife in Florida, and while serving out his life sentence, he confesses to the rape and murder of a nurse way back in 1988 – for which he receives the death penalty. While talking to Herzog, he even admits to committing at least one other murder. He is a serial offender, who has no hope for rehabilitation. He led a troubled life as a youngster; in and out of trouble from the time he is a teenager – who may have molested his twin sister. Yet, he seems to value family – he wants some sort of approval, or at least acknowledgment for his family. He tries to manipulate Herzog, but he sees through him. This is the most disturbing of the docs, but Barnes is so clearly guilty, so clearly evil – and even rather unrepentant – even blaming the nurse for her own murder, although not wanting to disparage the dead, he refuses to explain why it was her fault.

The second doc is the only one that concentrates on a woman – Linda Carty. This is the strangest, most incomplete of the docs, mainly because I do not think that Carty ever really levels with Herzog. She remains evasive throughout, trying hard to milk sympathy out of the audience. Her case is disturbing, because it involves Carty apparently hiring three drug dealers to break into the apartment of neighbor, to steal her newborn child. She tells the drug dealers that there is nearly a ton of pot in the apartment – which simply is not true. Eventually, the young mother is found dead in the trunk of a car, and her baby found barely clinging to life in a car right next to it. Carty proclaims her innocence, and she does have serious, legitimate concerns about her representation at her trial. But based on what I saw in this documentary, I think she probably is guilty. But because she is so evasive, and the case itself so complex, I do not think Herzog ever really nails this segment down. It does have one of the best single moments in the series though, when a prosecutor says it is easy to concentrate on the criminal, and forget the victim, in these cases. That it is very easy for Herzog to "humanize Carty", to which Herzog very bluntly replies “I do not make an attempt to humanize her. She is simply a human being, period”, which is one of the underlying points to this series by Herzog – the people who commit these crimes may have done evil things – but they are all still human.

Next up is two of the infamous Texas Seven, inmates serving out life sentences in a Texas penitentiary, who inexplicably were able to escape from prison. They didn’t kill anyone getting out of the prison, and survived for weeks on end on the run. One night, while robbing a sporting goods store, they do kill a police officer – for which all are sentenced to death when they are caught. The segment starts with Joseph Garcia, sentenced to 30 years for a murder, which he claims self-defense, who had no part in the murder of the police officer – he was shot outside, while he was still inside the store, but because his co-conspirators committed the crime, by Texas law, he is just as guilty as the one who pulled the trigger. Next, Herzog interviews George Rivas, the mastermind of the escape, and the man who pulled the trigger to kill the police officer. This is stronger than the Linda Carty segment, but not as strong as the other two – Herzog, by necessity, has to spend so much time going over how they escaped, that the crimes for which they found themselves in prison in the first place, and their life on death row, and doesn’t get quite as much attention.

Finally, there is the case of Hank Skinner, in what is probably the strongest of these mini-docs. Skinner was convicted of a triple homicide back in 1993, and vehemently claims his innocence (but does seem to hedge at points, coming up with excuses as to why his DNA may well be on the murder weapon when he eventually gets them tested). Skinner speaks most eloquently on his life on death row – on the Pollunsky unit, and how it felt when he came very close to being executed – only receiving a last minute stay of execution. Skinner gives the clearest picture of what day to day life on death row is like – how dehumanizing it is, and how difficult it is to maintain your sanity.

I think these four documentaries are better taken as a whole than any one segment is. Along with Into the Abyss, it makes for one large film about capital punishment in America. Yes, Into the Abyss is a masterpiece in itself, because Herzog takes the time to flesh out the crime, the victims and their families, the perpetrators and their families, and the people who are tasked with the impossible job of executing these criminals. Herzog does not have the time to do that with any of these cases. And yet, taken together, the movies make a devastating portrait of crime and punishment in America. You can be for capital punishment or against it, and these films will still make you question what you think. That is what great documentaries do – not simply confirm or congratulate you for believing what the filmmaker does, but makes you re-examine why you think it.

Movie Review: Into the Abyss

Into the Abyss ****

Directed by: Werner Herzog.

All they wanted was the red Camaro. Michael Perry and Jason Burkett were teenagers – just over 18 – and they knew another kid, Adam Stotler, and his family had a Camaro they wanted to drive. They planned to go over to his house and ask for a place to spend the night, and when everyone was asleep, steal the car. When they get there however, Adam is out, and only his mother is at home. They change the plan, tricking her into letting them in the house; they shoot her in the head, wrap the body up and dump in a nearby lake. When they return however, they discover that the gates of this gated community are locked for the night, and they don’t know they code. Undeterred, they sit and wait – and when Adam and his friend Jeremy Richardson – come back, they fool the two of them, take them out to the woods and kill them, then go back to Adam’s house and steal the Camaro. And Adam’s truck for good measure. They spend the next couple of days joy riding and bragging about what they did. The police move in, a shootout ensues, but the pair is quickly arrested. Perry confesses leads investigators to the bodies of the two boys and at trial is found guilty and given the death penalty. At a separate trial, Burkett is also found guilty and given life in prison with no possibility of parole for 40 years. What may have tipped the jury away from death was his father speaking at the sentencing hearing, blaming himself for what his son did, because he spent most of his own life in prison.

This is the story that the Werner Herzog’s new documentary Into the Abyss tells. It is one of the saddest films of the year, and one of the unlikeliest anti-death penalty documentaries I have ever seen. I have seen many anti-death penalty documentaries over the years, and normally they focus on flaws in the system – taking on the cases of innocent or possibility innocent people who have been condemned to death. That isn’t what Into the Abyss is about. There is way too much evidence against them to believe that Perry and Burkett are innocent of the crimes they were convicted for – although Perry says he didn’t do anything, and Burkett says he was there and didn’t kill anyone no one really believes them – not even Herzog. When he first meets Perry he tells him “Just because I’m here, that doesn’t mean I have to like you. I just don’t believe that the State should execute people”.

What Herzog does in Into the Abyss is detail the crime, and then details the sad lives that everyone involved in the crime have lived. You do feel worse for Burkett, who with a father constantly away in jail and a mother in disability raising five kids in a trailer park, never seemed to have much of a chance. Perry did have a more supportive family, but chucked it all away because he didn’t want to go to school – he didn’t want to do much of anything except hang out and do drugs. He admits as much, and he leaves a lasting impression on the movie, with his goofy smile. He still seems to be just a kid. Still, the details of both of their lives leading up to the murders are heartbreaking, even if their stories are far too commonplace. The interview he gets with Burkett’s father, also in jail, is just plain sad.

But Herzog never excuses their crimes. He interviews the police who investigated the crimes, and the family members of the victims, who are still dealing with their loss 10 years after the murders. Richardson’s brother, who looks tough with his tattoos, can barely hold himself together on camera, breaking down in tears multiple times as he talks about his brother. And Adam’s sister (who also lost her mother in this crime) is just as shaken up, although she appears to be able to hold herself together just a little bit better. Their interviews make one thing clear however – they will never get over their loss.

Herzog also gets an interview with a man who during his time with the Texas penal system (where this crime took place) oversaw over 120 executions. It got to a point where they were executing two people a week. He was a staunch advocate of capital punishment when he started, but after so many executions, he just couldn’t take it anymore. Even if you agree that some people deserve to die for their crimes and the State should have the right to execute people, you have to ask yourself if the State has the right to ask their employees to do it. How is a prison guard in charge of executing prisoners supposed to deal with being there and strapping down the condemned and watching them die. Over 120 times. I’m not amazed that some guards eventually crack under the weight of what they have seen – I’m amazed more don’t.

Werner Herzog is one of the mad geniuses of film. He often injects some strange things into his documentaries – like the part of his last documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about cave paintings, where he ends the film talking about albino alligators for some reason. What all these Texans made of this crazy German is something I don’t know, but at times, they do seem to be shaken by his bluntness. I mean this in a good way – Herzog doesn’t pussyfoot around. But he also doesn’t go off on any of his tangents in Into the Abyss. He realizes this story is sad enough as it is, and it doesn’t need these forays. There is only one moment – in the movie’s first scene, an interview with the Prison Chaplain, whose job it is to be with the condemned until they die, where Herzog asks a completely off the wall question. The Chaplain talks about golfing, and seeing the trees and having encounters with the squirrels. Herzog, always interested in animals, asks the Chaplain to tell him about one of those squirrel encounters. His answer surprised me. From such a seemingly innocent question, comes the first time in the movie that someone will break down crying. It won’t be the last. Herzog has made a powerful film about the death penalty, and he does it not by skirting the issue, but by facing it head on. If you want to execute someone, the least you can do is get to know them.

DVD Review: Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Cave of Forgotten Dreams ***

Directed by: Werner Herzog.

I don’t much like 3-D films, but having seen Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams on DVD, I wish I would have caught the films in theaters when it playing in that format. If ever there was a documentary that screamed out for the 3-D format, it is this film about the oldest cave drawings ever discovered. They were unearthed in France in 1994, and have been dated as being 32,000 years old. Perhaps even more surprisingly, there are drawings in that cave that are as recent as 25,000 years old, suggesting that this was a spot where people returned to for generations to do their drawings, and tell their stories. Ever since the paintings were discovered, they have been shut off from the outside world. The dangers of the atmosphere and of human contact are too great to risk losing this most important of discoveries. Director Werner Herzog was granted access, along with a three man crew. They were only allowed in for five days, four hours a day. They have one camera and a few old lights, and have to remain on the steel sidewalk set up inside the cave. There are areas where even he isn’t allowed to go. The result is a fascinating look at the earliest artwork known to man.

Director Werner Herzog is one of insane geniuses of film, who for 40 years now, has drifted back and forth freely from narrative to documentary filmmaking. His best narrative film work starred Klaus Kinski, perhaps the only person more insane than Herzog to find success in film, and in films like Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcaraldo find the insane spirit of their title characters. Since Kinski’s death in the late 1980s, only in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans among Herzog’s feature work captured that same spirit – because he found another collaborator willing to go insane in Nicolas Cage. It is his documentary work – including his best, Grizzly Man, about Timothy Treadwell who wanted to protect the grizzlies, and ended up being killed by one – where his mad spirit mostly comes out these days.

And therein lays the reason why I may not have liked Cave of Forgotten Dreams as much as some of his other recent documentaries. As gorgeous as the artwork is too look at, as much as Herzog gives a sense of time travelling to an earlier time to see the origins of art (including a few typically Herzogian voiceovers about the nature of art) Cave of Forgotten Dreams doesn’t quite tap into that same mad genius quality that Herzog’s best films do. When he tries – like a side trip with a perfumer who sniffs out caves, or in the final scenes of movie involving albino alligators (who else would even think to put albino alligators in a film like this?) – They seem unnecessary and distracting. In a film like this, the images are the star, and you really don’t need anything else (like the distracting score). They speak for themselves.

Which brings me back to my regret at not seeing this film on the big screen in 3-D, the way Herzog intended it. He apparently doesn’t like 3-D anymore than I do, but felt that it was appropriate for this film. He was most likely right. So, if you still have a chance to see this in a theater, I suggest you go. The home viewing experience, as fascinating as it was, feels somewhat incomplete.

Movie Review: My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done?

My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done? **
Directed By: Werner Herzog.
Written By: Herbert Golder & Werner Herzog.
Starring: Michael Shannon (Brad McCullum), Willem Dafoe (Detective Hank Havenhurst), Chloë Sevigny (Ingrid), Udo Kier (Lee Meyers), Brad Dourif (Uncle Ted), Michael Peña (Detective Vargas), Loretta Devine (Miss Roberts), Grace Zabriskie (Mrs. McCullum), Braden Lynch (Gary), Irma P. Hall (Mrs. Roberts), Verne Troyer (Midget).

Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you I have a high tolerance for weird movies. Some of my favorite movies are the ones that leave most people shaking their heads in disbelief at what they had just watched. But at a certain point, when movies are just weird for the sake of being weird, I lose patience. Such is the case with My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done? the new film directed by Werner Herzog and produced by David Lynch. By themselves, they are truly weird masters. Together they have come up with a movie with no discernable point except to be weird. The result, while certainly interesting, is altogether unsatisfying.

The movie stars Michael Shannon as Brad McCullum, a strange man who comes home for a trip to Peru and is never the same again. He was supposed to go White Water rafting with a group of friends, but when he sees just how violent the river is, he backed out. Smart move, because the rest of the group ended up dead. The movie opens when the police are called to a suburban San Diego neighborhood because a woman has just been stabbed with a sword, and is lying dead of her neighbor’s floor. Almost immediately, the police figure out the murderer is Brad, who was the woman’s son. But he has locked himself in his house, and told them that he has hostages inside, so they better not try anything.

The detective in charge is Hank Havenhurst (Willem Dafoe, an actor who it would seem, like Shannon, to be perfectly matched with Herzog), who wants to get to know Brad and see if they can resolve things peacefully. The movie is essentially made up of flashbacks as Hank interviews Brad’s fiancé Ingrid (Chloe Sevigny) and his mentor Lee (Udo Kier). Throughout the movie we get the picture of Brad as raving, religious fanatic, driven insane by his overbearing mother (Lynch favorite Grace Zabriskie), whom he cannot seem to leave. Except for his trip to Peru, he has never moved out of his mother’s house, and her weird hold on him is beginning to frustrate Ingird, who loves him, but wants a normal life.

Admittedly, this plot description does not sound overly weird, but it just describes what happens, not how the whole thing is presented. The film is, I think; supposed to be a surrealistic nightmare, full of strange images, where the bright sunny streets of San Diego suburbia contrast against the darker elements of the story. I say I think, because I’m not exactly sure. No one involved in the movie seems to have thought things through at all.

The movie starts out strangely, but fascinating none the less. Brad goes on his religious rantings and ravings, and does some truly strange things like rolling a can of Quaker Oats at the police. At first, I went along with the movie, thinking that Herzog must be building to something. If there is a director in the world better suited to telling the story of an obsessed religious fanatic, than I don’t know who it is. Throughout his career, Herzog has always tackled strange characters – whether they be in his features or his documentary. Normally, you meet the most fascinating characters in a Herzog movie.

The problem with this movie is that I do not think that anyone involved truly understands Brad – who he is, or what motivates him to do what he does. Sure, they provide some pop psychology to try and explain it, but it doesn’t really fit. Michael Shannon is a talented enough actor to make us believe he’s truly crazy, and to hold our interest, but eventually we discover that he is as clueless as everyone else is into what makes Brad tick. This is not so much a portrait of a weird man, but a movie about a man who does completely incomprehensible things. Why does he throw the oatmeal at the cops? Or leave his basketball in the park? Why doesn’t he move out of his mother’s house? Why can’t he act properly in the play he is so obviously obsessed with? What the hell is motivating this guy?

Because the movie never answers this question, the whole collapses under its own weight in weirdness. There are striking images in the movie, and despite the fact that Shannon doesn’t know what motivates Brad, he remains a fascinating actor to watch. Sevigny is truly sympathetic in her role as Ingrid, but I kept wondering not only how she ended up with Brad in the first place, but also why she is still around. A sane woman, and she appears to be sane, would have fled a long time ago. But what is the point of casting actors as gloriously weird as Willem Dafoe and Udo Kier, and then making them play perhaps the most thuddingly dull characters of their careers? Only Grace Zabriskie truly gets into her role, and that’s because hers is the simplest one in the movie to understand.

Herzog is a truly talented director. At the Toronto Film Festival, where I saw this movie, I also saw his brilliant Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and that film had a madcap brilliance on display that I haven’t seen in a Herzog feature in years. My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done? seems to instead wallow in its weirdness. Herzog became more interested in doing something different, then in doing something well. The movie is a failure – an honorable failure to be sure – but a failure nonetheless.

Movie Review: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans ****
Directed By: Werner Herzog.
Written By: William Finkelstein
Starring: Nicolas Cage (Terence McDonagh), Val Kilmer (Stevie Pruit), Eva Mendes (Frankie Donnenfeld), Xzibit (Big Fate), Brad Dourif (Ned Schoenholtz), Tom Bower (Pat McDonough), Jennifer Coolidge (Genevieve), Fairuza Balk (Heidi), Michael Shannon (Mundt), Shawn Hatosy (Armand Benoit), Shea Whigham (Justin), Denzel Whitaker (Daryl), Irma P. Hall (Binnie Rogers), Vondie Curtis-Hall (James Brasser)

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans is the most demented, delirious black comedy in recent memory. It is the type of film that I think many are going to hate, but that will attract a loyal, cult fan base. I knew that when Werner Herzog and Nicolas Cage teamed up, the result would be over the top, but I never expected just how far over the top they would go. This film is some of crazed masterwork in excess.

Cage plays Terence McDonagh, a Lieutenant with the New Orleans police department who gets promoted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, because he risked his life to save a prisoner who was abandoned in his cell when the storm hit. In the process, McDonagh injured his back severely, and now takes Vicodan to dull the pain. And cocaine. And pretty much every other drug he can get his hands on. He is far from choosy. His “girlfriend” is Frankie (Eva Mendes), a prostitute, and at times Terence uses his badge to scare her clients into forking over even more money or drugs. He is also not above pulling over a couple of college kids he thinks are holding, threatening them with arrest, then stealing their drugs, and fucking the pretty girl while her boyfriend watches. Forget moral crisis – that happened months ago. Terence is now just in freefall.

A case lands on his desk. An entire family of African immigrants have been slaughtered in their home. Everyone knows that local drug kingpin Big Fate (Xzibit) is behind the crime – he killed the father because he tried to move in on his turf and the rest of the family because they were there – but there is no evidence to link him to the crime. But Terence has more pressing problems. His gambling debts to his bookie (Brad Dourif) have become so high that he cannot get any more credit, and one of Frankie’s Johns that Terence shook down has mob connections, and they have know come looking for revenge. None of this even mentions that Terence is so far gone on drugs that he has begun to hallucinate. During a stakeout at one point he asks “What the fuck are these iguanas doing on my coffee table?”, and when he is informed there are no iguanas, he hits one in the head just to ensure that it really is there. Later, in the aftermath of a gang style shooting he tells someone to “Shoot him again, his soul is still dancing”, and sure enough, we do see the man soul’s break dancing away even as his boy lies in a pool of blood on the floor.

The movie follows Terence during the course of the investigation into the murder of the immigrant family, but is really more about his freefall than anything else. The movie is said to be a remake of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 masterwork Bad Lieutenant, which gave Harvey Keitel the best role of his career. That film was a dark drama about a drug addicted cop also in freefall. But other than the most basic of story similarities, the films could not possibly be more different.

What makes the film as great as it is Nicholas Cage’s brilliant, over the top performance. Cage has always been one of the most fearless actors on the planet, and his penchant for going over the top has led to some of his very best, and his very worst, performances. In Bad Lieutenant, Cage dives headlong into his role, and comes up with one of his most memorable performances ever. In nearly every frame of the movie, Cage carries the film on his back with his demented ravings. A highlight is his repeated visits to an old age home, where he yells at an old woman and her personal support worker, trying to get them to reveal information he needs for his investigation. These scenes represent Cage at his manic best. Yet, no matter how far over the top Cage goes, his character remains believable, and even somewhat grounded. Cage may fly into theatrics repeatedly in the performance, but he never goes too far. There is not another actor on the planet that could have played this role as well as Cage does.

Werner Herzog is one of the mad geniuses of the cinema, who for the most part has mainly focuses his energies on documentary films in the last decade. His Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World are two of his most brilliant efforts to date. Until he teamed up with Cage here, he was never able to find an actor with the same insane drive and brilliance as his favorite actor Klaus Kinski. The two collaborated several times, including the masterpieces Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcaraldo, and after Kinski’s death, Herzog made the wonderful documentary My Best Fiend about their love/hate relationship. Kinski was the only actor alive who could keep up with Herzog’s insanity (or perhaps, it was the other way around). But in Cage, Herzog has found a similarly fearless partner to make a movie with. Because of this, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans is one of the great achievements in both Herzog and Cage’s careers. This is a great one.