My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is a complex, hypnotic drama starring Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, and Chloe Sevigny. The film starts with homicide detective Havenhurst (Dafoe), and his partner Detective Vargas (Michael Peña) being called in to investigate a recent murder. After scanning the scene for the basic details, Dafoe and Peña are made aware that the main suspect, Brad McCullum (Shannon) is across the street. After making contact with McCullum, the situation turns hostile when McCullum declares that he has two hostages.

To help facilitate the process of capturing McCullum, two close relations are interviewed. His fiancée Ingrid (Sevigny) and his former theatre director and close friend Lee Meyers (Udo Kier). Each person gives their own history about McCullum to Havenhurst in order to try and figure out what would make him kill this woman. The most disturbing park, aside from slaying the woman with a sword, is that the woman is also his mother.

The stage is set for Herzog to investigate the psyche of an intelligent, deranged man. The film is based on a true story where an actor who was performing in a Ancient Greek play about a man who kills his mother to avenge his father's death, does just that and kills his own mother. Herzog and fellow screenwriter Herbert Golder interviewed the actual man in an attempt to try and tell this remarkable story accurately. At the screening of the film, Golder said that the man was highly intelligent. I can't imagine what would posses someone to do this hideous act, but this movie tries to put together some sort of rationale as to what would lead a person to do this.

I thought that Shannon's character would be the most interesting, but after thinking it over I found that the other people in his life were even more peculiar. How could they put up with his radical behavior and outlandish thinking? Ingrid says that two years prior Brad embarked on a rafting trip to the Amazon with some of his friends. He was the only one who survived. After he returned Ingrid said he was different. Very different.

Why did she stay with him for so long when clearly he was mentally unstable? Why did Meyers, the director of the Greek play, put up with him that long? These people are more intriguing than a man who clearly is not all there in the head for one reason or another. I had a hard time getting past these questions.

What helped was the entrancing camera work and film composition that Herzog put together along with cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger. The slow tracking shots along with eye popping sets and locations create this feeling of foreboding. The eerie score composed by Ernst Reijseger, whose score is heard almost entirely throughout, gives the film a much needed boost by ingering in the background.

Shannon might have been a little over the top or under the top. It's hard to describe. He played it kind of flat but to a point where it was a bit much. I think he is really stepping into his own as a serious actor and roles like this are good for him. Very brooding and psychologically complex. The rest of the cast does a decent job, but nothing too dramatic, with the exception of Brad Dourif in the small role of Shannon' uncle. He plays a fiery ostrich farmer who does not approve of the lifestyle his nephew has chosen.

There is always something to like about Herzog's movies and sometimes there are things I very much dislike. I think this one needed a little more boost in the action to keep the audience fully interested, but there is still something here to take away.

Of all the films I saw at the 2010 Edinburgh International Film Festival, this is the only one (apart from Savage Messiah) that deserved, for me, repeated viewings. I'm not implying it's the best ever Werner Herzog film. Or the best David Lynch film (if you feel his 'producer' role influenced it that much, as many did.) But I was captivated by what 'My Son' had actually done. Even though it is obvious from the start. Less obvious though is the Greek tragedy playing out in his mind which, in his head, is mostly what he's actually doing. Apart from that, I wanted to re-watch so many scenes. Crazy stuff that is made believable simply by the conviction with which it is presented. The first viewing had me gripping my seat in open-jawed amazement throughout, only to breathe a sigh at the end and wonder what I was getting so excited about. Flamingo hostages? Give me a break! (Even if you are supposed to call them 'eagles in drag.' Or ostriches.) God is in the kitchen. On a tin of oatmeal to be precise. But this isn't comedy (though you may laugh) and consider, if you will, that, "The cruel bitch of female passion can break apart the yolk that joins a pair; and force apart the dark embrace of beast and man alike."

Now we're getting somewhere, and it's hypnotically arty, fiendishly funny, upsettingly evocative of nasty dread around the corner, and aren't you pleased that dreams are only dreams and this is only a film.

Story One. The Truth.

The film is based on the true story of Mark Yavorsky, a San Diego man who stabbed his mother to death, inspired by his recent role as Euripides' Orestes in a production of The Eumenides at University of California, San Diego. Or was it Aeschylus' version. Or maybe it was Electra, by Sophocles. (The Truth isn't very interesting anyway, so you can skip this bit.)

Story Two. The Cinematic Truth.

Brad McCullum (Michael Shannon) is maybe in his late twenties but lives with his eccentric and overbearing ("You know you like your jello!") mother. Brad adores mum (played by Grace Zabriskie) with a Norman Bates –like unhealthy shine. This being a Herzog movie, it goes with saying that he's crazy, although the line between 'crazy' and 'madly inspired actor-artiste' is deliberately nebulous. He is engaged to a very normal girl (played by Chloë Sevigny, whose characters do seem to specialise in dubious boyfriends, don't they?). Their shared passion for theatre somehow makes this believable. Willem Dafoe and Michael Peña are bizarrely and beautifully caricatured Lynch-style detectives for whom the unusual is just another day's work. Rather more interesting for them is a tale of the plain clothes policeman getting busted for speeding by another plain clothes policeman. They're about as normal as the blood-related cops in Tarantino's Deathproof. If a murder won't fit on the report sheet, it will by the time they've finished with it. They are also about the sanest thing we've got short of lovesick Sevigny or an exasperated theatre director.

So Brad doesn't get to kill mum on stage cos he's far too 'inspired' to be managed by the director and gets kicks off the cast. He runs the stage sword (which is meant to be Greek but isn't, because Brad prefers it that way) through his mother several times as they are sitting down for morning coffee with their nice neighbours. This occurrence is treated in a fairly routine way near the beginning of the film, so we can enjoy the rest of the time in extended flashbacks to understand what really happened and why.

Story Three. The Real Truth.

Orestes (with whom Brad identifies) is the last link in a bloody line of godly nastiness. Tantallus had been hard done by, and invites the gods to dinner to see if they are real. When they turn up, he serves his son in a stew (They didn't have jello in ancient Greece). The gods puke, but the bits of half-chewed flesh live on to father more cannibals. Only Orestes can lift the curse, but has to kill his mother to do it. If that sounds crazy, it probably was. But Orestes is something of dramatic symbol for anyone whose crime is mitigated by extenuating circumstances. Mad or not, you do what you have to do. "At least some people act a role," says Brad, "others play a part." Historically, it's about replacing matriarchy.

This is a film where you are entranced throughout, awaiting the dark brooding fury or the mother's 'vengeful hounds from hell.' (Or at least an ostrich that steals yours glasses while you're cleaning them.) It even has a dwarf. At the end, you might wonder what on earth you were getting so worked up about, but it's hard to deny you enjoyed the ride. Analyse it too closely and you might not like the extended freeze frames which are ludicrously pretend (you can see Sevigny moving, understandably, as she tries to eat her horrid jello). I did, but for someone people who spotted it the first time round, the joke had worn off. For others, it might be a re-hashing of Lynch/Herzog staples without breaking radical new ground. I suspect I may have to change my 'rating' to five stars if I slink back and see it yet again.

Roger Ebert said about My Son that it "confounds all convention and denies all expected pleasures", and this is partially true because there's a murder but we know who did it and we know where he is, right across the street, and the hostage situation that develops outside the suspect's place is perfunctory at best (which means Willem Dafoe as the homicide detective has very little to do here, no this is Mike Shannon's film), but in place of the tired conventions of the detective movie Herzog invents new pleasures, strange and mystifying and sometimes completely mindbending and hilarious, like the mental image of a midget on a baby horse being chased by a 45 pound chicken that is taller than both rider and horse, an idea for a commercial Brad Dourif explains wide-eyed with fascination, but a commercial to what how should he know!

This is an amazing film on the poetics of madness using the real story of a man who slew his mother with a sword to tell us about absurdity in the world. It's like jumping over the fence of an insane asylum to mingle with the inmates and pay attention to what they have to say because there might be truth there, and if there isn't they always make up the best of stories. Herzog's most famous characters have been romantic madmen indeed, and Brad McCulloch fits right next to Cobra Verde the slavetrader bandit, he's the cynic who rebels and leaves his rebellion incomplete, without a grand message for the world. He goes rafting in Peru then gives up on it, tells his friends he won't go to the sweat lodge where the 104 year old shaman smokes Kool cigarettes and reads Hustler, that he wants to stun his inner growth and become a Muslim. He berates his hippie friend who meditates on a rock facing the river, and tells him to open his eyes, reality is around him.

As with other Herzog films, I like this so much because it celebrates insane human behaviour, monomania and folly, dogged human pursuit for transcendence against a yawning futile universe. I like how this is punctuated by some amazing images; like the dinner scene at Brad's house with his girlfriend and mother, where all three of them simply stop moving and freeze in position. People who love to hate David Lynch, will find plenty of room for maneuvre here to call My Son strange for its own sake, nonsensical and pretentious. In a meeting between Herzog and Lynch before the film was made, they both expressed a desire for, in Herzog's words, "a return to essential filmmaking" with small budgets, good stories, and the best actors available. This is all that, except in the way very few people can make it.

Based on a true story where a young man with mental illness is involved in an old play about a man who kills his mother, who then kills his mother. The police are called and the man holds up in his house with two hostages while the police surround and try to begin negotiations. At this point the film appears like it will focus on this but instead we get a story constructed of flashbacks which mostly come from the perspective of Brad while also get nothing from him in the present. The flashbacks involve some that appear relevant (his experiences in Peru, his involvement in the play) and others than have no context (Brad wandering round China). The police action and interviews outside the house form the structure for all this but while in another version they would be the "all", here they seem to exist almost like a necessary evil.

I say this because the film seems much more interested in the flashbacks and in particular using them as a tool to bewilder, set a very strange tone and generally make the viewer feel on-edge. It does this very well and even stories which seem relevant are given a weird tone. This matches most interaction with Brad in the film, he is intense, makes no sense and his anger is often as sudden and unjustified as the moments that give him peace. I guess that the goal was to replicate the inside of his mind, of the delusions and the feelings that within himself make perfect sense but to everyone else is either bewildering or frightening or a combination thereof. If this is the goal then it is achieved and the only remaining problem is that achieving this goal is not the same as making the film work – perhaps it could have been but in this case it is not.

The structure doesn't allow us to experience Brad's mind, if anything it puts us in the minds of the police who have shown up from the outside. As such we think we know the score (because we have seen this genre like they have done this job) but yet what we then experience not only doesn't fit this expectation, but ultimately we are left none the wiser in terms of our understanding; the man and the crime remain an enigma with only the very obvious link to the play's themes being the "reason" (if there even is such a thing approaching that word). It is frustrating in this regard.

The delivery is mostly good but doesn't make it worth it. As director Herzog delivers lots of striking images and scenarios but I felt myself constantly pushed away by the heavy use of music – most of it caterwauling to my ears. It seemed to be trying to present a profundity that wasn't there (which I guess is how it appeared to Brad) but all it did was grate and alienate, because again I was already on the outside – the music just made the walls higher and the gates stronger. Shannon is great though – he has a marvelous intensity that he brings to each role and it is just a shame that the film doesn't help him much. He did a similar role recently in Take Shelter, where the film tried to bring us into his mental illness – that one did that much more effectively than this. Dafoe, Sevigny, Kier, Zabriskie, Hall, Peña and others all provide solid support and add the sense of a deep cast, but they are just structural supports for a film which prepares the base well but seem to have much to actually hold it together from there. That said, I did like that so many of them linked to other films from Herzog, Lynch or both.

It is a shame because it is rare to find myself so pushed away by Herzog as I was here. This is not to say that I always "get" him, but usually what he is doing has enough of interest and curiosity behind it that even when I'm outside his shop, he still draws me to put my nose against the window. But here it seemed deliberate to push me away, to prevent me understanding and I'm sure that was not the goal, just the side effect of the method of trying to achieve the goal.

A compelling look into one man's slow decent into madness. Brilliantly directed and featuring a stellar cast, - including Willem Dafoe and Micheal Shannon - this film is both horrible and fascinating. It concerns a man whom, after acting in and becoming obsessed with a Greek play, chooses to do that which his character does; kill his mother with a sword used as a prop in the production. Although it cites David Lynch as producer, it's unclear what the director's actual involvement was with the film. The viewer gets the idea that Herzog is more paying homage to Lynch then anything. Watching this film is like watching a train wreck; it feels awkward and odd, but for some reason, you can't look away. I'd recommend this film for any Herzog or Lynch buff (the reference to 'Blue Velvet' is worth it) and anyone who likes bizarre, horror films. Otherwise, the average movie-goer might find this film pretentious and boring.