TIFF ’09: My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?

Directed by Werner Herzog

Respected iconoclastic auteurs Werner Herzog and David Lynch collaborate on this drama, with Herzog as director and Lynch as executive producer. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is inspired by the harrowing true story of Mark Yarovsky (Michael Shannon), a graduate student at USCD who, after being cast as the lead role in a Sophocles production, went on to stab and kill his mother with an antique sabre in his neighbor’s living room. William Dafoe stars as Detective Hank Havenhurst, who is called to the home where the murderer has barricaded himself in his house and taken two hostages. Across the street, Brad’s mother lies dead, found sprawled in a pool of blood, and slowly a string of Brad’s friends arrive on the scene, among them his girlfriend (Cloe Sevigny) and his theater-director pal (Udo Kier). Slowly, the bizarre pieces of the story are placed in front of the cop, who tries to make sense of it all.

Herzog’s story, as in his other feature films based on true stories, does not follow the Yarovsky’s story very closely. Most obviously, Yarovsky’s name in the film has been changed to Brad McCullum. What is not so obvious at first is just how much My Son is beholden to the trademark tropes of both Herzog and Lynch. If you pay close attention one can see the shades of Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and even Lost Highway, and like Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre and Grizzly Man, Herzog finds himself behind the camera of another film where a man is driven to madness by the wilderness. Only unlike any of those films, despite being a bit strange, My Son is rather simple yet effective. There is little to no mystery here, and Herzog keeps his camera focused on the actors rather than the action or crime.

The beautiful opening static shot of a train passing under a bold blue sky immediately sets the dreamlike mood of the film. Herzog seems to borrow freely from Lynch, with long stretches of silence, bursts of the surreal, a fascination with small people and strange birds (flamingoes and ostriches) which all contribute to an altered state of consciousness that might make My Son a little eccentric for the mainstream viewers. The dialogue is delivered in a strange manner, all of it stilted and  theatrical, and the result is weird, hilarious, riveting, and at times frustrating. The digital cinematography by long-time Herzog collaborator Peter Zeitlinger is especially muddy, shot in guerilla-like fashion; it appropriately accompanies the beautiful droning experimental score.

The cast is universally superb, starting with Michael Shannon, who plays Brad. His idiosyncratic sensibilities, for which he has become well known, serve him well in the role, in which he outdoes his Oscar-nominated performance in Revolutionary Road. Interesting, unsettling and entertaining the actor provides comic relief and demands sympathy, distancing the viewer from the violence he has unleashed. Shannon, who is becoming an expert in embodying all manner of mentally ill folk (Bug, World Trade Center), delivers a powerful character study and a definite scene-stealer.

Dafoe and Pena’s characters keep the film grounded in reality and Chloe Sevigny for a change plays the sweet and normal girlfriend. Under the direction of Herzog the actors speak in a off beat manner, at times holding their poses, staring straight into the camera (much like a freeze frame) without blinking.

Herzog proves that his creative spirit is very much alive and remains the greatest living film director today. Fans of the director’s work won’t be disappointed, but anyone looking for a standard narrative film will be. If anything, Herzog’s second fiction feature of 2009 works as a fascinating counterpart to Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, focusing on a good cop rather than the portrait of a bad one.

Ricky D