My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

It’s typ­i­cal – you wait for ages for a fic­tion film from Wern­er Her­zog and then two turn up at once. But after the unbri­dled insan­i­ty that was Bad Lieu­tenant, Her­zog has toned down the melo­dra­ma to present us with a tale that has a pos­i­tive­ly unset­tling and creepy air.

Based on a true sto­ry, My Son begins with the dis­cov­ery of the elder­ly Mrs McCul­lum (Grace Zabriskie), who has been stabbed to death with a sword. Detec­tive Hank Haven­hurst (Willem Dafoe, remark­ably restrained for once) soon dis­cov­ers that her actor son Brad (Michael Shan­non) is respon­si­ble and has bar­ri­cad­ed him­self in a house across the street. As a poten­tial hostage sit­u­a­tion devel­ops, Haven­hurst attempts to piece togeth­er the events that led up to the crime with the aid of Brad’s fiancée, Ingrid (Chloë Sevi­gny), and his the­atri­cal direc­tor. He soon dis­cov­ers a man slow­ly dri­ven mad by a seem­ing­ly incom­pre­hen­si­ble world.

Her­zog once again returns to the themes that have dri­ven him through­out his entire career – obses­sion and mad­ness. And, as usu­al, the direc­tor is less inter­est­ed in deal­ing with the under­ly­ing caus­es of insan­i­ty and more with how it man­i­fests itself. He’s well served by Michael Shan­non, who gives a pow­er­ful and intense per­for­mance in the lead role. With more than a hint of Klaus Kin­s­ki, his brood­ing pres­ence and qui­et men­ace con­tin­u­al­ly demand atten­tion. He’s ably matched by Grace Zabriskie, who plays the brit­tle yet dom­i­neer­ing matri­arch with an icy calm.

Exec-pro­duced by David Lynch, My Son is cer­tain­ly redo­lent of some of his work (par­tic­u­lar­ly in a scene with a dwarf that might as well have ​‘David Woz ​’Ere’ graf­fi­tied all over it): this is Amer­i­cana as night­mare. While the nature of mad­ness may not be under­stood, it seems an apt response to a world that is pre­sent­ed as staid, gar­ish and con­tra­dic­to­ry. Yet, for all its under­stat­ed dread, Her­zog still brings in moments of humour that bal­ance the inten­si­ty on show elsewhere.

This is famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry for Her­zog, deliv­ered with the kind of wit and intel­li­gence that make for a com­pelling crime dra­ma and intrigu­ing char­ac­ter study.