The first collaboration between legendary filmmakers David Lynch and Werner Herzog, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man whose mystifying experiences lead him to commit a shocking act of matricide. 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. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Confounds all convention and denies all expected pleasures, providing instead the delight of watching Herzog feed the police hostage formula into the Mixmaster of his imagination.
Lynch and Herzog have tickled us for years with their dwarves and iguanas and impenetrable stories. This collaboration represents the vanishing point of willful obscurity.
As a writer-director with five decades' worth of notable screen work to his credit, [Herzog] certainly can't be faulted for taking risks, even if it means now and then, well, falling on his sword.
The version of madness displayed by [Michael Shannon's] Brad is not typically dramatic; it's mostly just strange, and dances the line bordering on goofiness.
It is a film that addresses itself directly to the audience of Lynch and Herzog, and sets out, in its own special way, to "razzle them, dazzle them, razzle dazzle them."
Oddly understated, it's nevertheless as unnerving a vision of disintegration in suburbia as you'd expect from director Werner Herzog and producer David Lynch.
The nods to Aguirre, Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo won't go unnoticed, but the more obtuse touches that bear the stamp of executive producer David Lynch may prove too eclectically eccentric.
My Son, My Son... may be a minor work in the Herzog canon but it's still one of the more fascinating, frustrating, disturbing and beautiful experiences available to cinemagoers this year.
Like many of the characters, the plot is under-developed yet My Son, My Son lingers in the brain and is essential viewing for Herzog and Lynch fans alike.
A clash between mental deterioration and confrontational cinema, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done lunges into the fragmented abyss of a murderous lost soul attempting to craft his own personalized religious awakening.
Both baffling and mystifying, the film details a descent into madness with God in a boombox, worshipped oatmeal boxes, and the designated lunatic's proclaimed mantra, minus reference to any white whale though flamingos may be implicated, as Call Me Farouk
Directed and co-written by Herzog (with Herbert Golder) and executive produced by Lynch,[the film] offers a whiff of originality in a sea of cinema schlock. But compared to both filmmakers' prior works, it's nowhere near as memorable.
This is Herzog pursuing ideas that fascinate him almost without recourse to whether or not they "work"... wildly interesting, almost too interesting to handle.
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done isn't exactly what I was expecting from a collaboration of Lynch and Herzog but it's as good as I was expecting. Michael Shannon is intoxicating in the lead role and he really makes the film. Both directors show themselves here and there but keep their signatures slight and subtle -
The true story is the star here as it should be and they've told it accordingly. The supporting cast also do a brilliant job and it is visually rich, far from disappointing and very haunting indeed. My kind of film!
As a fan of both Herzog & Lynch, I was extremely excited by the idea of this union.
And them when I saw the cast, my interest was peaked even more.
Sadly, aside from a few bright spots here and there...things never really gel. Not that you expect a lot of "gelling" from Herzog & Lynch...but ultimately it just feels
like a battle between two very powerful and brilliant forces in which neither wins.
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