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My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
This film is a 2009 collaboration between two Kings of Cinema: Werner Herzog and David Lynch. A match made in heaven? Yes.
It's as strange and bizarre as you'd expect from such a team-up. Michael Shannon plays Brad Macallam, a man with serious problems.
The title of the film comes from what his mother says to him after he runs her through with a sword. The plot is mercurial, hard to get a handle on. (Very David Lynch). Willem Dafoe and Michael Pena are detectives assigned to negotiate with Brad, who is holed up in his house- a strange house with cactuses dotting the entire front, and he has pet pink flamingoes. Chloe Sevigny (wonderful actress- I love her) plays his fiance who helps the police.
Michael Shannon is a very fine actor, and he has some intense scenes here- see the scene between him and Chloe as "Ingrid" where he gets angry and repeats "So What?!"...wowza. Udo Kier also plays a role, assisting the police as he taught Brad at a theatre group, where he insisted on rehearsing with a real sword for a play. This film is difficult to describe, although it can be described as esoteric, artistic and AWESOME. I loved every minute- even from the gorgeous opening scene. The camerawork is sublime, with nice filters, by Ace cameraman and Herzog partner Peter Zeitlinger. The soundtrack is amazing, and the scene where he plays a Christian country song was sublime to me. See it at all costs. Filmed in San Diego, Los Angeles, China, Mexico and Peru, with STUNNING cinematography- no joke, you cannot complain about the visuals.Two giants of cinema COLLIDE....
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I'll take a look at this. It tanked generally with critics.
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I didn't want to say too much about it, I didn't want to give too much away. There is a lot going on here. The scenes in Peru deal with his river kayaking buddies, and the scenes in Mexico with Ingrid were cool too- I loved the mariachi band.
This can be called a police procedural without any procedure. LOL
Real S.W.A. T. cops from San Diego were used, and be warned- there is not much explained- there are weird scenes where the cast "freezes" or "pauses", while the image holds. Confounding. All characters are trying to help Brad, but they all come up empty.I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this one Chris...
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It's hard keeping up with Herzog and his prolific efforts of late are uneven and a lot different from his early iconic stuff. Have been meaning to watch his Queen of the Desert because the orientalist subject is an interest of mine. I did see Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World to review, and that subject interested me and I wrote a detailed review, but it seemed a bit scattershot compared to Alex Gibney's Zero Days. I actually attended a screening of Into the Inferno at IFC without writing a review because it just didn't grab me.
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I've heard that his recent efforts are not up to his usual high standards. "My Son, My Son" is an odd one, but I loved it.
My thread here puts him on a pedestal, but I know he's not infallible.
A friend of mine was accepted into his "Rogue Film School", and she told me a cool story about Grizzly Man. There was footage being edited on an Avid machine and his editor paused the footage to take a piss break. Werner just walked by the room and saw the image paused onscreen- tall grass blowing in the wind- and he loved it. He used that paused image as a motif. As an integral part of the tone of Grizzly Man. That's how he works!
