My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? Review

In 2009, Werner Herzog delivered a stunning one-two punch with "Port of Call New Orleans" and this movie. I would rank "My Son, My Son" right up there with "Aguirre" in the Herzog canon. If you're looking for standard conventional Hollywood product, avoid this one. If you're looking for something that will keep you fascinated, confused, and thrilled by its originality, see it ASAP. As a portrait of insanity, "My Son, My Son" throws Hollywood's standard treatment of the subject in the wastebasket: You're never given an "explanation" for the main character Brad's descent into insanity, and he doesn't come off as a merely normal guy with some problems (let's face it, Russell Crowe in "A Beautiful Mind" is the most RATIONAL paranoid schizophrenic in the history of mankind!). I see and hear mentally ill individuals at the bus stop nearly every day, and their words make just as little sense as Brad's. This is a powerful, compelling, and sadly overlooked masterwork.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? Overview

The first collaboration between legendary filmmakers David Lynch and Werner Herzog, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is loosely based on the mysterious true crime story of a young stage actor who, obsessed with a Greek tragedy he's rehearsing, slays his own mother with a sword. Academy Award-Nominees Michael Shannon, Chloë Sevigny, and Willem Dafoe headline this psychological thriller written and directed by Herzog, produced by Lynch, and featuring Grace Zabriskie, Udo Kier, and Brad Dourif.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? Specifications

The film takes place in Southern California, the story comes from an actual case, and the cast includes Willem Dafoe and Grace Zabriskie. It sounds like a David Lynch picture, except it isn't. Instead Lynch produced, while Werner Herzog directed. If Bad Lieutenant was Herzog's swamp noir, My Son, My Son is his desert noir. In another Lynchian touch, two cops (Dafoe and Michael Peña) provide entry into the San Diego-set story. Called to the scene of a murder, they meet actor Brad McCullum (Michael Shannon), who utters "Razzle dazzle" as they enter the flamingo-pink ranch house to find Mrs. McCullum (Zabriskie), dead by sword. Before Brad's fiancée, Ingrid (Chloë Sevigny), arrives, Herzog flashes back to Brad's days in Peru, where he found his "inner voice." The flashbacks continue to his participation in the famously matricidal Oresteia (Udo Kier plays the director). Combined with Ernst Reijseger's off-kilter score and Peter Zeitlinger's sun-bleached cinematography, it all exerts a certain queasy fascination, but Herzog's "whydunit" never really takes flight. Unlike Nicolas Cage's loopy lieutenant, Shannon invests Brad with a more recessive quality, which gives his madman greater credibility--at the expense of empathy. And yet… there's a scene with Shannon, Brad Dourif, and a tiny man in a tuxedo that offers the sort of what-the-heck magic that makes even the lesser films of Herzog and Lynch more interesting than most. Fortunately, there are enough of those moments to make the movie worthwhile, though not quite the messed-up masterpiece it might've been. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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