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My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

01.01.70

Deviates wildly from the facts of the real case in order to creatively explore the madness that led him to this violent act. The breathtakingly gorgeous opening and closing shots both visually summarize one of the film’s major themes, that of the juxtaposition of nature with the man-made world, and this seems to be a source of the creeping insanity that overtakes its central character. Brad McCullum (Shannon), the Yavorsky surrogate of the film, begins to exhibit increasingly strange behavior after returning from a kayaking trip in Peru (one of many inventions created by Herzog and co-writer Herbert Golder) that killed all of his companions after Brad decided at the last minute to bow out, later claiming it was the voice of god that forestalled him. There is a sense that something out there in the jungle has crept in and haunted him ever since.

The film’s narrative begins after the murder of Brad’s mother (Lynch favorite Grace Zabriskie) has already occurred, and much of the story is told through disjointed flashbacks extrapolated from police interviews with people who know Brad, including Lee Myers (Udo Kier), the director of a production of a Greek tragedy also involving matricide in which Brad was the star, and his co-star and fiancée, Ingrid (Chloe Sevigny). The investigation is led by Detective Hank Havenhurst (Willem Dafoe in a very restrained performance, so as not to overshadow the crazy found elsewhere) and his partner Detective Vargas (Michael Pena), and with the help of Myers in particular, it leads in many unexpected directions. Among the most memorable of these is a trip to the ostrich farm of Brad’s racist, homophobic uncle Ted (Brad Dourif, a favorite of both Lynch and Herzog), as well as a flashback initiated by Ingrid in which we see Brad wandering through a hospital, demanding to visit “the sick, in general” in a sort of messianic haze.

Source: Movies I Didn't Get