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| Director Werner Herzog at a press conference in Bruxelles (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The day started with a visit to Brixton Poundland to see if I could acquire a DVD to equal the wonderful Brian Blessed King Lear I bagged last year. This year's haul included the promising "Midgets versus Mascots" which I may review at some point if I can bring myself to watch it.
Following a delicious Thai lunch in Brixton Market and a requested return to Federation (Best Coffee Evah!) for a coffee and cookie dessert, we set off to Hyde Park for a stroll along the Serpentine and across Kensington Gardens on a perfect Spring day.
"Abyss" is the documentary which Herzog mentioned last year at the Ritzy when we watched "Cave of Forgotten Dreams". It is based around the consequences of a multiple homicide in Conroe, Texas. The footage includes interviews with friends and relatives of both the victims and the killers as well as the two men convicted of the crime. One of the killers Jason Burkett, convicted of two of the three murders had his death sentence commuted, while Perry, the killer of the first victim is on death row with his execution about eight days off at the start of the film. He does not seem particularly phased by this and is apparently still hopeful of reprieve although neither are vociferously protesting innocence.
This is a very thought-provoking film because, although Herzog is against the death penalty and the lads concerned clearly came from families and backgrounds which made the odds of them becoming the next Brian Cox or Mother Theresa infinitesimally small, the apparent lack of any kind of remorse or sympathy for their victim's families make it hard to care greatly when the state eventually does away with young Michael. When one of the relatives of his victim tells us that at the end (Herzog avoids the unnecessary sensationalism of filming or attending the execution) he forgave them (the victim's family) it would be easy to share their anger.
The most interesting characters in the film are not really the murderers, who are hard to understand or empathise with, but the father of Jason Burkett who, himself serving a life sentence, had made the emotional appeal in court which apparently resulted in the commuting of his sentence from death to life and an ex-member of the "tie-down team" at executions who had a "road to Damascus" moment after a close professional involvement in over a hundred state killings. In the end he simply stopped, at the cost of his own pension.
Burkett's father, unlike the son, was the one person to show regret and take responsibility and however we might dislike Jason it's hard to imagine that he was going to turn out to be a nice young man given his background. In fact Conroe and nearby Cut and Shoot are not communities that appeal as a holiday destination after meeting some of its illiterate and apparently amoral citizens.
Herzog's Q&A illuminated some points which in my opinion make a difference to the perception of the film. The most important of these for me is his condemnation of the puffed up hypocritical minister at the opening of the film. I immediately feared that Herzog was taken in by the self-aggrandising tosh this idiot was spouting (although there was a clue, I subsequently realised in his leading the Minister into showing himself by requesting the "squirrel anecdote"). In the Q&A Herzog made it clear that he had seen through the man and indeed cut most of his responses out.
In the end this film was never going to change my opinion on capital punishment as I have always been against it anyway, but it is a fascinating piece of quirky Herzogian cinema which makes you think about education, religion, family relationships, friendships, greed, morality, community, law, justice and indeed death and life. ...as well as 'gators, squirrels and monkeys.
Once again Herzog (despite his reputation for shoe-eating craziness) came across as a very humane and rational man. He describes his career path as more of a "wild slalom" but it has produced a remarkable body of work and the audience seemed in the main to be very respectful. Herzog himself appeared very happy to give his time and could be seen long after the filmed Q&A, surrounded by, and deep in conversation with, members of the audience.
In fact we left before Werner in the end, as I wanted to dash back to Victoria and get a train as soon as possible to avoid complications with connections into the sticks. All went well until towards the end of the journey when a broken train blocking the line caused everything to grind to a halt and a lot of rail officials to run around moaning that nobody ever tells them anything. Despite the lack of information, some of us did telepathically intuit that there might be a bus outside at some point and sure enough, eventually Harry Potter's night bus (at least it was as fast and scary) replaced the train and got me home just after midnight.
It had been a great day out and finding a strawberry liquorice and white chocolate stick in my bag made the rail delay pleasant enough while I amused myself by watching some of the public working themselves into a self-righteous lather and taking it out on the equally bewildered station staff. These self-appointed V.I.P.s having loudly made the point that they were something special went off to spend their riches on 15 mile taxi rides, something which my pocket rendered not even worth considering.
I suppose it's too much to hope that that nice Mr Herzog can come up with another interesting film by next March and arrange another q&a in an attractive London cinema. It would be nice though.
Tuesday 27 March
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