into the abyss

Into the Abyss

Schedule

DateTimeVenue
March 2, 201207:00pmArt Gallery of Alberta

Description

In his fascinating examination of a triple homicide case in Conroe, Texas, Werner Herzog probes the human psyche to explore why people kill—and why a state kills. In intimate conversations with those involved, including 28-year-old death row inmate Michael Perry (who was scheduled to die eight days after his interview with Herzog), the filmmaker achieves what he describes as “a gaze into the abyss of the human soul.” Herzog’s inquiries also extend to the other convicted killer, Jason Burkett; his father, also incarcerated; a woman who lost both her mother and brother in the crime; as well as a chaplain and former executioner who’ve been with death row  prisoners as they’ve taken their final breaths. As he’s so often done before, Herzog’s investigation unveils layers of humanity, making an enlightening trip out of ominous territory.

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  • Jason Beesen

    Amazing portrait of types of people I don’t normally meet.

    Take the person who was sister of one murder victim and daughter of another (killed because the killers really wanted their Chevrolet Camaro), for example.  In her obviously horrible last few years, she has also lost a cousin to suicide, one other death which I can’t even remember, her biological father to old age (hopefully) and her stepfather to being hit by a train.  Then she watches the execution to boot.

    Then the third victim’s brother couldn’t find out what had happened because his cell phone was a prepaid that couldn’t dial long distance and his grandfather refused to even speak with him.  Then he missed his brother’s funeral because the police guessed he would try to attend, and took the opportunity to arrest him at the graveyard.

    Then one of the culprits (the one who isn’t sentenced to death) has to get both his father and brother to, themselves, both get day passes from their own incarcerations in order to testify on his behalf. Probably worth the trouble though, because almost randomly the judge chose to spare him and not the other guy.

    Actually there is far far more which came across to me as absurd, but I would almost have to go through the film frame by frame to pick it all out and put it into a spreadsheet or something. (I just remembered a spitting guy relating how he had a screwdriver jammed through both of his lungs, 30 minutes before he had to be at work, with some ducks walking by in the background.  The ducks being the only normal things in the whole documentary.) 

    The documentary succeeds wildly in simply documenting, and makes overwhelmingly clear that the death penalty is comically tragically useless in Texas.  The title is clearly a double entendre:

    The Abyss = Death?

    or

    The Abyss = Texas.