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This project sounded too crazy to be true when announced, but apparently it is just about done, and will play at Toronto and possibly Telluride. Herzog's other too-crazy-to-be-true project, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is playing Toronto as well.

Trailer

"He stabbed his mother, and she is dead."

That looks amazing, I love how the trailer attempts to make it look like a slasher movie with the blood-red text and voice-over, then it shows Udo Kier's glasses stolen by an ostrich. What a wacky trailer, it looks like they have no idea how to market it.

Good to see Shannon working with Herzog though, looking more bug-eyed than ever.

How lovingly bizarre. The trailer looks like something from a bad 90s thriller. The fact they only let the most generic things out must mean Herzog is fully loaded on this.

Michael Shannon is Malcolm McDowall in that poster.

Based solely on the trailers for these two new Herzog films (dicey proposition, I know), I have come up with this analogy

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done : A History of Violence ::
Bad Lt. Port of Call N.O. : Basic Instinct 2

Which is to say, trailer quality aside, I think My Son looks to have potential to be a relatively mainstream film that successfully incorporates Herzog's usual themes, whereas Port of Call looks as batshit crazy as what I imagined Cronenberg's unmade Basic Instinct sequel to have been.

This opens on friday at the IFC center in Manhattan. According to the IFC center twitter, Herzog will appear in person at the 7:30 and 9:45 shows on Friday. I got my ticket, so grab them while you can before word spreads. They just announced it an hour ago.

Thanks for the heads up! I don't remember the reviews being so positive, but the promise of Herzog's responses to the typical crazies had me buying two tickets in a heartbeat.

Which is to say, trailer quality aside, I think My Son looks to have potential to be a relatively mainstream film......

If this is mainstream, I'm loving where popular culture is heading.

Christ, I enjoyed this film. Herzog off the leash is a wild ride. It is so unlike anything I've seen in a long, long time. Forget about the David Lynch comparisons. This is pure, Herzog. The soundtrack, and use of music, is classic Herzoganly sublime.

I bought it completely. No reservations, no post-view revisionism.

A final thought: I would love to see Werner Herzog work with english actor Tom Hardy. Can you imagine?

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life imitates art that imitates life

tajmahal wrote:Christ, I enjoyed this film. Herzog off the leash is a wild ride. It is so unlike anything I've seen in a long, long time. Forget about the David Lynch comparisons. This is pure, Herzog. The soundtrack, and use of music, is classic Herzoganly sublime.

It's pretty hard to forget about the David Lynch comparisons when so much of the film plays like someone trying to imitate the more self-consciously portentous bits of Lynch's output!

I can't begin to tell you how much I wanted to adore this (especially after the genuinely sublime Bad Lieutenant), but I thought it was anything but a wild ride, and that Herzog seemed oddly subdued. Granted, there were superb moments - every frame of footage involving Brad Dourif, for starters - but it's certainly one of my bigger disappointments this year.

Interesting comments, Michael. I watched the two films over two nights (in the middle of a Herzog mini-festival at home), and I was surprised by my reaction to both films. I was very much looking forward to Bad Lieutenant, after seeing the crazy trailer. I was surprised by (what I thought was) the traditional structure of the story. I had a great time, and will watch it again soon. I almost didn't buy My son, My son, and was genuinely surprised by how quickly I fell under it's spell. It was one of those films that had me from the get go. I think it is a Herzog at the top of his game, but most reviews have been mixed, if not quite critical of the film as a whole. Your comment about Herzog being subdued was also echoed in a couple of reviews I read after viewing it. My one criticism is the look of the film. I read Herzog didn't enjoy the Red One experience, so perhaps he didn't achieve the look he was after. I still don't get the David Lynch comparison. It was mischievous Werner in full flight, for me. I'm glad to see some more discussion, though. The film deserves it.

tajmahal wrote:I still don't get the David Lynch comparison.

Everyone. Talks. Very. Slowly. And. Emphatically. As. Though. Heavily. Sedated.

It was irritating enough in Lynch's work without Herzog deciding to have a go too.

And it's largely because of this that I simply didn't care about any of the characters, I wasn't emotionally drawn into their various conflicts, and aside from a handful of genuine laughs the film left me almost completely cold. And I'm a rabid Herzog fan.

I enjoyed this -- but it wasn't the same kind of wild ride that BL - Port of Call was. I didn't really buy into the characters as much (and did not quite understand how any of the other characters could have been favorably impressed by him).

Well, I loved it. Would anyone care to mention whether the Scanbox Entertainment DVD transfer is defective in the way the First Look Studios is?

I don't really care if Herzog wants the film to be seen in this way, this lack of contrast is fairly unwatchable, and manually adjusting the contrast on the TV isn't a particularly fun option. Oh, the reason I ask is that the transfer on the Kinowelt German blu-ray (according to screenshots online) appears to have a fairly healthy contrast ie: normal.

More sons having done it:
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A Japanese knife in this case, not a sword, on first reports.
And sounds like mom survived(?)
But bonus points for stabbing mom upon being greeted by her at the airport.
Pretty messed up.