One of Werner Herzog’s first requests in his documentary “Into the Abyss” is, “Describe an encounter with a squirrel.” But we know Herzog; you can practically hear him asking it in his chilling German accent along with speculations about smuggling sperm out of a prison, and it almost sounds sadistic.
But from these oddities Herzog gleams a devastating and powerful film that examines death and loss from those who live with death, those who bring death, those who bring life and one who will know death very soon.
This last man is Michael Perry, a man on death row after the senseless murder of three individuals. Herzog speaks to him eight days before he’s given the needle, and it’s all the more crushing watching this post-mortem interview so close to his death.
Perry comes across as an optimist. “I’m either going home or I’m going Home,” he says to Herzog. Perry has learned to cherish every minute because death may claim him at any moment.
Herzog finds hope and sentiment in Perry’s remarks, but his disposition is not as sunny. “It does not necessarily mean I have to like you, but I respect you and show my condolences,” Herzog says to Perry bluntly as they speak through glass.
It is not the only thing Herzog is blunt about. “Into the Abyss” is a film about death, not the morality of capital punishment. Leave that documentary to Errol Morris.
Although Herzog is only interested in the subject of loss, there is no mistaking Herzog’s stance on the issue: it is wrong to take a life in whatever form. To him, it is a gift to merely observe life. “Life is precious, whether it’s a squirrel or human.”
Rather, Herzog has made a painful film that carefully develops even the most minor of characters in this story of death. One woman removed the phones from her house because she could not live with the pain of receiving any more calls about family tragedy. Perry’s associate Jason Burkett has received a life sentence, yet he has gotten married and fathered a child with his wife all from the confines of prison. The brother of one of Perry’s victims confesses family and friends said he, not his brother, should be the one dead.
And perhaps the most saddening is the man who brings death, the executioner himself. In the state of Texas, one executioner performed over 150 procedures in one year, and he describes in vivid detail the protocol of his work. The executioner claims there is no emotion in the heat of the moment, but Herzog evokes it.
This is powerful, soul crushing documentary filmmaking. Herzog’s editing is slow and silent, splicing together harrowing police footage and not shying away from any of its rippling impacts.
“Into the Abyss” makes you fear death, but it has a tearful epilogue that is nothing short of beautiful. Those closing moments solidify this as one of Herzog’s most personal, intimate and mournful films.
4 stars