CineNiche

This film has us stumped, not in the sense that we don’t have any theories on its ending, but in the way that the experience was so perfect it has left us with writers block. The film begins with Aoyama’s wife dying and his seven long years of loneliness.   This leads him to need to remarry – “men can’t maintain without female support.”   He and his friend Yoshikawa set up a fake film audition for a project called “Tomorrow’s Heroine.”   Asami is one of the applicants and through spilt coffee Aoyama is completely smitten.   The titular event is creative in the way it is edited – a montage of mixed questions and answers (i.e. have you ever been involved with the adult film industry? This is the scar from my first suicide).   The only straight forward audition is Asami’s.   Over the course of what seems like weeks the two finally stay the night together in what we consider the biggest scare within the film – commitment.   It ends badly, full of regret. ...

Theatrical  We heard the same buzz as everyone else: David Lynch and Werner Herzog teaming up for the first time to create a film based on the true events of a son killing his mother with a sword.  Then when the cast was selected we grew even more excited: Michael Shannon as the sword wielding son, Chloe Sevigny as the girlfriend, Udo Kier as an acting instructor, Willem Dafoe as a detective sorting out the facts, Brad Dourif as a hate filled ostrich farmer, and Grace Zabriskie as the mother.  What could stand in the way of this film’s greatness?  Well apparently slow plotting without meaning and pregnant with nonsensical surrealism can be quite a drag. Being a Herzog fan it comes as a surprise to see that My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?  is so poorly constructed and executed, but in perspective it does feel like a stepping stone towards a new Herzog era.  He is no stranger in the land of surrealism, just one look at Even Dwarfs Started Small ...