TIFF 2011 - Into the Abyss

Into the Abyss (2011) dir. Werner Herzog
Documentary

***½

By Alan Bacchus

What a devastating film. Into the Abyss is an elegiac case against capital punishment told through the far reaching circle of violence surrounding a particularly grisly and inhuman act of murder.

Michael Perry is on death row for a 2001 triple murder, which saw a random woman, her son and a friend murdered over a car. As recounted by Herzog, it's that utterly frightening kind of murder, a random killing perpetrated by young men with no concept of moral right and wrong, and no concept of life or death.

Even though it's been almost 10 years and Perry is days away from death, he maintains his innocence. It’s the same with his accomplice, Jason Burkett, who received a life sentence. Both of these guys continue to blame each other and divest themselves of the greater responsibility. But Herzog is never interested in stirring up controversy or re-investigating the case. Instead, he focuses on the cloud of violence that feeds into his rather profound sketch of the cycle of violence that afflicts this rural southern community of Conroy, Texas.

Herzog's usually droll interview techniques pull out some remarkable confessions. The victim's sister, for instance, after recounting the painful details of the moment she heard about the murders, reveals an astounding history of family violence, which left half a dozen of her family members dead due to various causes in the last six years.

Each and every angle of this story opens up a complex web of violence that is never ending. The depth of the levels of tragedy is staggering. It’s a truly sad and frightening picture, but it’s important for Herzog and his audience to help comprehend how such heinous actions can be committed over and over again.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3-D

Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3-D (2010) dir. Werner Herzog
A documentary featuring Werner Herzog

**

By Blair Stewart

The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in the south of France was an early turning point in human expression, intuition and endurance when you factor in the climate during the Upper Paleolithic period (32,000 years ago, or when most of Europe was a continental ice cube). In 1994, a team of speleologists followed an air draft down into the untouched cavern that preserved the oldest cave paintings in recorded civilization, which provided incredibly vivid detail.

Beyond piles of outwitted predators' bones from prehistoric rituals, the paintings were found etched with a three-dimensional perspective. A horse with an outline of eight legs flowing across limestone that was radiated by dancing firelight would have the illusion of movement, no doubt a source of joy, long before Muybridge's mark was due. Because of the fragile existence of the unearthed treasures, the French government has kept public viewing of the cave under tight restrictions.

Enter Werner Herzog, one of the leading figures of the New German Cinema movement encompassing both fiction and documentary. World traveller, opera director and a deadpan old-kook to boot, Herzog was granted limited access to Chauvet for an excursion into 3-D filmmaking. The turquoise beauty of the Ardèche river region certainly pops in that format, but the billowing details of the actual paintings themselves sadly can't translate well in the muted glow of the handheld camera lights and necessary cinema glasses. The imagery captured despite the limitations of 3-D are still striking. A preserved child's footprint seems freshly laid if not for the elapsed time, the red handprints of one caveman share space with the clawed graffiti of extinct cave bears, and everywhere stalactites hang rudely in the frame like a dog's drool.

The cave is a film's dream setting, and yet I found myself drifting into slumber despite my eagerness for Herzog's documentaries due to his many triumphs, from 1974's The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner to the 2007 Oscar-nominated Encounters at the End of the World. The mixture of a heavy cello score, Herzog's unhelpful monotone voice-over and the dim image was too much for my wits. The director's patented curveball-logic questions during his geological/archaeological interviews about the dreams of the long-dead artists detracted from the subject, as did the blatantly obvious written moments for his scientists (Herzog's best fictional work has the quality of fact, while many of his documentaries have meddling fingerprints somewhere among the pre-planned set pieces) and an ill-suited coda involving crocodiles.

The lingering questions that remain from the paintings will mostly be left unanswered, and while it's important to ask about their intentions and praise their achievements, it's mostly futile to put words in a dead caveman's mouth.

TIFF 2010 - Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) dir. Werner Herzog
Documentary

***½

By Alan Bacchus

I can’t believe I didn’t know this… in the opening moments Werner Herzog’s delightfully monotone German voice describes to us the discovery of one of the most influential archaeology sites of our time - a cave in France containing pristine, undisturbed cave paintings from 32,000 years ago (that’s THREE zeroes), which makes is the oldest recorded drawings/artwork of man.

Herzog gets us into the caves and shows us in 3-D these phenomenal works of art. I say works for art, because the technique made by these cro magnon men and women are astounding. First of all, the journey into the caves is a story unto itself. After moving through a dead bolted steel door, with small mobile cameras and minimal crew Herzog travels down a sharp cliff and then along a 3 foot wide steel walkway in order not to disturb the crystallized foundation of the cave. The whole cave is a work of art, the stalactites, the bones and skulls of extinct animals, including bears, tigers, and other wholly creatures.

On the walls are a series of intricately painting mosaics of animals using the contours of the caves walls to emphasize movement. As usual Herzog using his easy-going cinematic style he’s able to make even the most dry perfunctory information interesting and important. But Herzog has never been one to settle just for the information, it’s fun watching the scientists and archaeologists who have spent as many as 20 years mapping the caves and scientifically study the drawings be asked about what’s in the soul of the artists, or whether they dream of the painting.

What Herzog really wants to project to his audience is for us to look beyond the art and into the minds of the artists, to imagine their dreams, the spiritual aspect which separates man from animal and which connects us across these ages.

The 3-D is hit and miss. The low rent hand held camera create a nauseating swooshing effect, which loses all of it’s 3-D depth. But when Herzog is able to put his camera on some sticks we can really enjoy the stereoscopic space. Unfortunately within the caves, there’s not enough light to create definition and perspective as such, it’s not the best showcase of the medium.

The film though is another of Herzog’s phenomenal string of successes, doc or drama.

TIFF 2009: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) dir, Werner Herzog
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes, Vondie Curtis-Hall

***1/2

The new 'Bad Lieutenant' feels like one big cinematic joke leaving those who don’t get it alienated and dumbfounded and those who do laughing in hysterics. When this movie was first announced - idiosyncratic director Werner Herzog remaking or refashioning Abel Ferrara’s great character study of hedonism, depravity and redemption - none of us knew what to expect, but if anyone could possibly rework this material for the best it would Werner Herzog. The result indeed its an oddball film of monumental proportions, the work of a complete madman with total freedom with his cinematic canvas.

Nicolas Cage is Terence McDonough, the film’s title character. Like Harvey Keitel he’s addicted to drugs - explained to us this time in a flashback - and has the confidence that he can get away with anything. He and his partner Stevie (Val Kilmer) get assigned to a case of a family murdered as part of a Senegalese drug vendetta. As the investigation progress the events of his personal life interweave and interfere with the work.

Along the way Terry crosses paths with a number of oddballs. There’s Frankie (Eva Mendes) a prostitute who’s also his girlfriend and #1 drug partner who will develop the urge to kick the habit. Terry's also a gambler taking bets on college football with his weirdo bookie played by Brad Dourif. There’s his father and alcoholic stepmother who, and there’s his father’s dog which he has to take care of. There’s the child of the murdered family whom he brings along with him to his many sordid escapades, there’s the drug kingpin, ‘Big Fate’ (Xzibit) who proposes to Terry a partnership in organized crime, and there’s his police chief (Vondie Curtis-Hall) who tells him he’s close to having his badge revoked.

I can honestly say this is the only film to ever pull me back from ‘one of the worst pictures I’ve ever seen’ to become a headshaking instant cult classic in the same sitting.

It takes over half way through to figure this picture out. On one hand some scenes serve to recreate the hedoism and train wreck journey of Harvey Keitel’s character, others serve the tone of an investigative noir and other times we're watching Lynchian black comedy.

The opening scenes which appear to be played straight are executed with strange amateurish and uneven quality. Val Kilmer is unintentionally hilarious as Terry’s loose cannon partner, and the scenes meant to rival Keitel’s more audacious notorious scenes end up painfully overplayed and rotten.

Slowly we get accustomed to the general theme of wackiness, anchored by Nicolas Cage's wonderful performance. His acting style is perfectly suited to this material. Herzog appears to allow Cage to let loose like never before resulting in a number instant classic set pieces. Terry’s visit to the pharmacy to refill his vicodin prescription is priceless, and arguably the film's eye popping climax is the surreal drug deal shoot out - a scene which will likely be talked about for some time to come.

At some point it all clicked. Like I was out of sync throughout the picture. Once I got engaged the film dissolves away all its chaff revealing an utterly fascinating and entertaining surreal fantasy worthy of David Lynch.

The presence of Herzog’s other film, 'My Son My Son, What Have Ye Done' is important to understanding this picture. Though I haven't seen that film yet I defer by colleague Reece Crothers' assessment of Lynch's collaboration in that picture and assume a similar influence creeped into this one. So audience must come in with an awareness of both filmmakers’ previous films, as well as the original 'Bad Lieutenant' in order to fully appreciate the mad genius of this picture.

TIFF 2009: My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (2009) dir. Werner Herzog
Starring: Michael Shannon, Chloë Sevigny, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier

***1/2

Guest review by Reece Crothers

Many seasoned directors use the clout they accumulate over their careers to help emerging filmmakers realize their first films, or to make the jump from indies and foreign films to studio pictures, lending the "So-and-So Presents stamp" as a sort of formal endorsement. Spielberg, Coppola, Scorsese, they all do it. Most recently Peter Jackson produced Neill Blomkamp's "District 9", and before the trailer hit, when there was little more than the clever "Humans only" marketing campaign to arouse the audience's curiosity, Jackson's name served as assurance, a guarantee of quality. What is far less common is the joining of two, already established heavyweight directors. When Martin Scorsese produced Spike Lee's "Clockers" from a script by frequent Scorsese collaborator Richard Price ("The Color of Money", "New York Stories"), Lee was hardly a novice, with half a dozen studio pictures already under his belt, and the result was decidedly half-Lee, half-Scorsese. It's as if one artist were giving the other permission to borrow his language, his themes, even his actors.

Now David Lynch and Werner Herzog have joined forces, cinema's two foremost authorities on the absurd, each one a giant among his own fan base, both of whom have managed to cross over into mainstream cinema without surrendering their odd-ball visions (Lynch is only getting more cryptic with each film) and the result is as weird, hilarious, riveting, terrifying and frustrating as their combined filmographies would suggest. How much is Lynch and how much is Herzog is hard to say, but the cocktail is intoxicating. The music, the experimental use of tableau vivant, which Herzog gleefully violates by allowing the actors to blink while holding their poses, staring straight into the camera, the harsh sunlight bleaching the San Diego landscape, all contribute to a dreamy, altered state of consciousness that makes ‘Twin Peaks’ seem a little more ordinary.

After a beautiful static shot of a train passing under a bold blue sky, the story begins with a humorous back and forth exchange between Willem Dafoe and Michael Pena as detectives on their way to a brutal crime scene. The actors contribute worthy additions to the rich collection of memorable movie cop duos from recent years such as Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards in David Fincher's "Zodiac" (animal crackers anyone?) or Denzel Washington and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Lee's "Inside Man" (also featuring Dafoe as a cop). Like those other pictures, the cops here are decent, hard-working, compassionate civil servants, not super-cops, and while providing comic relief they also serve as the humane counterpoint to brutal violence and senseless tragedy. We empathize with them and we distance ourselves from the violence. Dafoe and Pena's characters keep the film grounded in reality. Pena is especially funny as an overzealous but not entirely talented young officer, eager to participate, while his partner handles the emerging chaos surrounding the pink flamigo house in suburban San Diego where Michael Shannon, playing the mentally unstable Brad, has taken hostages and apparently murdered his mother with a sword.

The details of the murder are recounted in grisly detail by the detectives and the witnesses but Herzog has wisely kept the violence off-screen, a welcome choice after the scalping in "Inglourious Basterds", the cheek-biting in "Watchmen: The Directors Cut" or nearly everything in "Crank 2". The truth is censorship is dead, the ratings system an anachronistic joke, and until they find a way to regulate the internet, images of any and every act of depravity imaginable are only a few mouse clicks away and restraint is in short supply. Herzog is weird, but he has class.

Michael Shannon it has to be said, is the most interesting American character actor to emerge in many years. He has that quality of making weird compulsively watchable, like Crispin Glover ("Back to the Future", "River's Edge") in his youth, or the late, great, 70's icon John Cazale ("Dog Day Afternoon", "The Godfather Saga") before them. In 2007's "Shotgun Stories" (a near-masterpiece overlooked in a year unusually crowded with great films), Shannon proved he could be menacing while still playing the hero. As much as I love Lynch and Herzog, Shannon is the reason I came to "My Son, My Son..." and I was a little disappointed. I have a feeling this has to do with how he was directed, but I wasn't on set so it's only a theory, but instead of using his inherent weirdness, as was on display in his work on William Friedkin's "Bug", "Shotgun Stories", and his Oscar-nominated performance in "Revolutionary Road", Herzog also has him playing weird and it takes a while to acclimatize to the performance. Around the half-way point I was so drawn in to the story that I accepted it, only pausing when Chloe Sevigny, as Brad's fiancee, shows up. She is so sweet and normal, that I couldn't understand why she was with him. This is "inspired by a true story", we are told in the opening credits, and it's hard to believe Brad wouldn't have gotten himself locked up with his psycho behavior long before he was ever able to draw the sword.

There is of course no such thing as a true story. What does "Inspired by" really mean? This is an old argument, but an important one. Whether or not a "true story" is even possible is an argument for another time, but in an era when writers are threatened to annotate their imaginations and inspirations to death by Errors & Omissions insurance nonsense, we have to wonder what those promises of "true", "inspired by", or "based on" really give us. Are we supposed to care more because it supposedly really happened? Would "Casablanca" be any better if there was a real Rick & Ilsa? Would you rather read a biography of Hamlet than Shakespeare's play? Would that somehow improve the drama of it? In the end it doesn't matter how much Shannon's Brad resembles the real-life Brad or if there even was a real-life Brad. He doesn't get locked up before the murder, and the character haunts and lingers long after both the deed and the picture are over.

True or not, the story is fascinating. Why did Brad have the sword in the first place? Because he needed it for a play. What was his role in the play? A man who kills his mother. And the director of the play? Udo Kier!! (Remember his scenes in "My Own Private Idaho"?) The parallels between the play and the murder are chilling, as is the revelation of just how long Brad might have been planning the murder, alluding to it cryptically in rehearsals. This is the most effective section of the film, where Brad totally descends into his own schizophrenic nightmare (the word "schizophrenia" is never heard at any time in the film). As harrowing as Brad's journey is, it's often also very funny. The trip to get the sword introduces us to a wonderful supporting bit from Brad Dourif as an insane, Ostrich-farming bigot. Dourif is incredible. Check him out in the recently issued Criterion DVD of John Huston's "Wise Blood", or in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" and you can forgive all the "Child's Play" sequels.

It's fun to see Herzog venture into genre storytelling when you consider his earlier, idiosyncratic "art films' and documentaries, and unlike his recent "Rescue Dawn", his strange sensibilities are fully intact. Perhaps protected and encouraged by another artist, especially on of David Lynch's stature, he is free to be himself. I can't wait to see how he fares with producer Edward R. Pressman ("Badlands", "Wall Street", "The Crow") for the "Bad Lieutenant" revamp, also playing TIFF this year. More on that to come.

RESCUE DAWN

Rescue Dawn (2006) dir. Werner Herzog
Starring: Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies

***1/2

“Rescue Dawn” is old-fashioned traditional filmmaking which wouldn't turn heads if it wasn't written and directed by one of cinema's most iconoclastic filmmakers - Werner Herzog. Mr. Herzog has never been one to do things the easy way. His track record is filled with wild adventures on location in some of the most remote and uncompromising places on earth. Each endeavour of his is like a different “Apocalypse Now”. He must drive his crew berserk, but the legacy of work has lasted longer than the hardships it took to create them. “Rescue Dawn” is such a film.

Herzog first filmed this story as a documentary in 1997 called “Little Dieter Needs to Fly”. This dramatic version starts out in 1965 before Vietnam was considered a full-fledged war. During this time it was a ‘Black Ops’ objective. Christian Bale plays Dieter Dangler, a pilot who is shot down flying over Laos, and taken prisoner in a POW camp. As Dieter first enters the prison, he’s surprisingly calm, perhaps expecting civil Geneva-code-approved treatment. He meets a group of other prisoners, among them, two Americans Duane (Steve Zahn) and Gene (Jeremy Davies). When he learns that they have been in the camp for over two years, Dieter quickly formulates a plan of escape.

Using his resourcefulness he devises ways to release themselves from handcuffs, hide their food and plot their escape under the noses of the guards. Ironically the major roadblock in his plan is Duane, who has delusions of being rescued miraculously and continually tries thwart Dieter’s escape. But the gang eventually does escape, which only puts them into an even more hostile environment – the Laotian jungle.

Christian Bale, as expected, delivers a great method performance. And Herzog makes things even easier for himself by casting the two great character actors, Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies who match up perfectly as Dieter’s mentally exhausted compatriots. Davies contributes another wonderfully spacey and neurotic performance and Steve Zahn's easy-going affability provides genuine warmth and sympathy.

Knowing Werner Herzog’s track record, the biggest surprise is the film’s conventionality. After over 35 years of filmmaking "Rescue Dawn" was his first Hollywood-ish film. The plotting of events fits nicely into the grand old tradition of prison-escape films. Herzog even gives us a triumphant climax with a 1980’s freeze frame to punctuate his thoroughly satisfying and straightforward ending.

The success of “Rescue Dawn” reinforces my desire to see more avant guard filmmakers make straightforward films. I’ve always thought, at will, David Lynch could make the scariest genre horror ever made. “Rescue Dawn” proves Herzog’s innate talent for storytelling can transfer to any genre or any medium. Enjoy.

Rescue Dawn