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VENICE 2009 Competition / Germany

Herzog splits himself in two

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Director Marco Müller went against the usual rules (and was opposed by many) when he decided, for the first time “in the recent history of the Venice Film Festival,” according to the official press release from the Biennale, to include in Competition two films by the same director. What is most surprising, however, is that the director in question has never before competed for the Golden Lion, despite having been on the scene for 40 years.

The director is Werner Herzog, a leading figure of the 1970s New German Cinema movement, an extreme filmmaker with a weakness for men and “larger-than-life” stories and a recently developed predilection for documentaries (Grizzly Man).

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At this year’s festival, however, he presented two narrative works (as well as an African La Boheme among the shorts in the Horizons section), both shot in the US.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (released in Italian theatres by 01 Distribution) is a loose remake of Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant, which Herzog swears he has never seen. There’s reason to believe him: the typically Catholic themes of the original (guilt and forgiveness, in particular) are nowhere to be seen.

Set in post-Katrina New Orleans, the film traces the unstoppable career of a drug-addicted and corrupt policeman (played by Nicholas Cage). His professional rise, achieved through unpunished crimes (and with luck often on his side), is punctuated by a delirious and highly personal musical score, combined with moments of truly visionary cinema. It’s surprising that many, on the Lido, mistook the film (produced entirely with US funds) for a purely run-of-the-mill thriller.

More “auteur-like” – starting with its title, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? – is the second instalment in the ideal diptych. Very different in terms of style and format (shot in cold-looking digital, compared to the mellow 35mm format of the previous film), the film is based on the real-life murder of a woman by her son (Michael Shannon, once again playing a misfit after Revolutionary Road), and tells, in the director’s words, “a horror story without blood or bloody scenes, where fear creeps under the skin”.

The unsettling atmosphere of provincial America recalls the masterpieces of David Lynch (it’s no coincidence that he co-produced the film with German company Defilm), creating a short circuit that makes it difficult, and perhaps futile, to work out where Lynch’s world ends and Herzog’s begins. Certain crazy and “off-key” scenes (especially the running ostriches) are, however, unmistakably Herzog’s, making the film a harsh but evocative “unidentified object”.

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(Translated from Italian)

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