My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

A man, Brad Macallum, murders his mother and then holes up in a house with two hostages. During the standoff the police piece together what lead to this turn of events.

This movie initially looked very interesting, Directed by Werner Herzog, starring Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigne and Michael Pena and with an intriguing start, the potential was there for an intense, gripping psychological drama.

However, it was not meant to be. The plot meanders, the intrigue wears off very quickly, Macallum's motives aren't explained very well and the whole thing just feels superficial and empty. Despite the great cast, the performances feel very stagey and overly melodramatic.

Disappointing.

OK, maybe you have to be a Herzog fan to get this one. In its small and quiet way it's a classic Herzogian study of visionary madness and obsession, played out this time with mordant irony against the blandness of suburban San Diego. Brad, a brooding man-child who lives with his mom, gradually goes nuts, saying and doing increasingly unhinged (and funny) things to his clueless loved ones, played by goofy character actors like Udo Kier, Grace Zabriskie and Chloe Sevigny. Willem Dafoe plays the equally clueless detective called in when Brad, inevitably, explodes in a single (off-screen) act of violence. All the usual Herzog flourishes are here, though often played small: odd animals, oddball people, grimly threatening nature, useless bureaucratic procedures, civilization and its hapless inhabitants struggling to maintain order and etiquette in the face of the world's natural madness, violence and chaos. It's a wacky, Herzogian comedy of manners, very much in the tradition of many of his films from Dwarfs through Stroszek to Grizzly Man. If you like Herzog you'll probably like it; if not, maybe not.

Directed by Werner Herzog, produced by David Lynch - quite a lot for any film to live up to? The question is does "My Son, My Son..." meet expectations? The answer is probably not. Although it's an interesting misfire. Although the film was directed by Herzog it often displays Lynch's hallmarks; the constant foreboding music humming low in the soundtrack, the moments of quirky humour, the mannered dialogue and the weird characters, most notably Lynch regular Grace Zabriskie as the mother. It's almost as though Herzog is intentionally paying homage to his fellow left-field director, while incorporating some of his own personal concerns such as a crazy central character, weird animals, dangerous nature and, most specifically of all, a river trip in Peru! The film is like a collision of two of the most fascinating film directors of the past forty years. But for some reason, it never truly clicks together, which is of course enormously unfortunate.

The film is basically about a psychologically troubled man called McCullum who one day kills his mother with a sword. He holes up in his house with two hostages while a detective arrives on the scene and talks to his two closest friends, his fiancé and theatrical director. From here we are told various things in flashback about McCullum, while still observing events in the hostage situation.

The set up is quite promising really. There is potential for an interesting story. And the film does have some good oddball actors at its disposal, like Zabriskie, Willem Dafoe, Brad Dourif and Udo Kier. But maybe Michael Shannon is a weak link in the central role, as it is very difficult to empathise with him. This may not be entirely Shannon's fault of course as the character he is playing is somewhat hard to like; nevertheless, Shannon is often too over-the-top and it becomes tiring. Funnily enough Nicolas Cage was also completely OTT in his central performance in Herzog's recent Bad Lieutenant but for some reason he was brilliant – so go figure. Anyway, for whatever reason, the characters never really draw us in so that we care enough. On a more positive note, the film looks great and has quite a lot of moments of the surreal, often humorously so.

This is a film only for those who appreciate Herzog or Lynch at their weirdest. To not put too fine a point on it, it's not for everyone. Not an unqualified success by any means but bizarre enough for some respect.

"It's all a little confusing." No kidding. When you get a movie that says "David Lynch presents a Werner Herzog film", you know you'll be in for some weirdness. Though by the film's end I was under the impression, perhaps from being such a geek about both director's work (I've seen all of Lynch, most of Herzog) that it was more the Bavarian's doing and that Lynch wanted his name with it. Which is fine, but fans will find their interpretations as they will. For me it's a continuation not so much of a crime genre story like Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans, but of Herzog's oeuvre in general about man's plunge and practical capture by madness due to nature (i.e. Peruvian jungle). And for fans of the director, it should be quite an event to be able to possible walk from one theater in NYC or LA playing Port of Call New Orleans to see another playing My Son My Son.

And yet, for all of the good stuff going on in this film, I might be more inclined to recommend the crazy-but-lucid head-trip of Port of Call over the hit-or-miss affair of My Son My Son. In this case we get the story of Brad, a sometimes-actor who takes a cue from a Sophocles play he's acting in to kill his mother one morning with a sword he used as a prop for the play. As the cops surround his house (not knowing that he really has flamingos as hostages, naturally, named after Secretaries in the Johnson administration), his girlfriend and play director expound about his decline in his mental capacity. Some of this comes from his unhealthy relationship with his black jello making mother, and some of it from his disillusioned trip to Peru, surrounded by health freaks. Or, perhaps, something else triggered it that Herzog intentionally leaves a mystery.

Which, the mystery part I mean, would be perfectly fine. But the problem comes in the screenplay, and some of the acting, both counts that from time to time have given trouble in Herzog's work. The set-ups of the flashbacks are often unconvincing, and there's a disconnect I felt between Michael Shannon's character and his girlfriend played by Chloe Sevigny (I don't often beg for explanation, but really, why are they together, how did they meet, WTF man). And, sad to say for someone who always admires the weirdness, it almost goes to extremes into becoming meandering, a facet of Herzog's work that comes up from time to time, such as Even Dwarfs Started Small or Invincible.

But oh, such parts that make up this whole! When Herzog is able to really relay to a willing audience about Shannon's frame of mind through images, and how to construct the shots and landscapes of San Diego city or a Calgary interior "tunnel" or just random images like a piano playing by itself, it's truly wonderful. Hell, we even get images I hadn't recalled since Fata Morgana, where he has his characters intentionally (ala Brecht) stand in a frozen pose as if it's a freeze-frame, with eerie music accompanying them, and every so often you'll see an eye move or control of the body start to waver. What kind of balance is there for this character, or for the story about him? That the cinematography from Peter Zeitlinger is top-notch and surprising also should go without saying.

And yet saying it's somewhat of a disappointment from such a massive genius of cinema- and whether you like him or hate him Herzog's place in modern movies is wildly unique- I hope would mean as a compliment. Like, say, Synecdoche, New York, it's got incredible sights and moments, things of this world we haven't seen in a film in a while (or maybe ever) like ostrich farms and a 1920's gospel song put over cops with their hands up in a hostage scene. I just wish it didn't get TOO weird for me.

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.