My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?

            Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (2009) at first seems like it will be another entry in the hostage subgenre of crime films. A lesser filmmaker would have taken the premise and carried it through to a climax involving Willem Dafoe’s cop character bravely entering the house and having a shoot-out with Michael Shannon’s deranged psychopath following an extended sequence of macho exposition.

            Herzog, of course, is not interested in convention. He turns this genre on its head as he has with countless other genres, including POW movies (Rescue Dawn) and corrupt cop movies (Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call- New Orleans), as well as his numerous meditative documentaries.

            The film is primarily set outside Shannon’s San Diego home as the police, led by Dafoe’s homicide detective, try to piece together why Brad (Shannon) has murdered his mother and holed up with two hostages. Brad’s fiancée, theatre director, and neighbors all provide narration for flashbacks that show Brad’s unraveling following a trip to Peru.

            I may be mistaken, but this film paired with the same year’s Bad Lieutenant is the first time Herzog has set his films in the U.S. Known for his ability to find uniqueness and something new in far off locales, He does the same thing with San Diego. Herzog presents Shannon’s home as a bizarre and colorful structure of 1950’s kitsch. The home informs Shannon’s character, allowing us to see that his upbringing was not quite as “normal” as ours.

            The primary reason behind Brad’s lack of normality is his mother, portrayed by Grace Zabriskie as an over controlling nightmare of a woman, unable to see that her son is no longer an eight year old. Their relationship reminded me a lot of Norman Bates and his mother in the way that they seem to be co-dependent. Brad’s murdering of his mother coupled with Psycho’s similar plot device makes me wonder if the Oedipus complex still exists in single parent houses, the mother eliciting both of the subconscious desires within a child. The use of pink flamingos as hostages serve as symbolism for Brad’s desire to keep his mother’s spirit alive even after murdering her.

            I also found the relationship between Udo Kier’s theatre director and Shannon’s crazy actor interesting. It is hard not to imagine that they are a comment on Herzog himself and his mythical collaborations with the late wild man actor Klaus Kinski. I would like to have seem a whole film focusing on that production of ancient Greek theatre.

 The film is not all gloom and doom, however. There is a lot of humor amidst the insanity, another signature Herzog touch. The scene of Brad Dourif’s uncle planning to have a little person ride a miniature pony is a call back to one of Herzog’s earliest films, Even Dwarfs Started Small. There is also a hilarious sight gag as Shannon is surrounded by the Swat team and one of the Swat members trains his gun on the flamingoes rather than Brad. This is perhaps a nod to Herzog’s passionate aversion to another bird, the chicken.

            The cast is top shelf. Shannon is perhaps the quintessential psycho of modern cinema, also playing crazy in Bug and Take Shelter. He has a face that suggests he is in a different reality from the rest of the world. Shannon is a master at using these facial tics to their maximum effectiveness. Dafoe, another actor whose image lends itself to off kilter characters, plays the straight man here. His detective character seems unfazed by the oddness that is going on around him. Having the usually unhinged Dafoe play the normal character underlines the insanity of the situation. Brad Dourif plays Brad’s racist and homophobic uncle and is presented as perhaps a cog in Brad’s meltdown. Dourif is great as always, but he seems to have worn the same costume in every movie he’s made in the last 10 years. The ensemble is rounded out by Udo Kier, Cloe Sevigny, Michael Pena, Irma P. Hall, and Loretta Devine; none of them a weak link in the cast.

            The film is very inventive and it is amazing that Herzog still continues to produce such strong work so late in his career. Many directors, even some of my favorites, tend to lose their edge as they age and have their artistic appetite replaced with a monetary one. With help from producer David Lynch, this film supports Herzog’s status as one of our greatest living filmmakers.