Into the Abyss – 3 Buckets

Despite releasing a significant number of movies about the death penalty, Hollywood has arguably not yet produced a measured, honest account of the practice. (Full disclosure: I still haven’t seen Dead Man Walking.) Most popular fiction films in which capital punishment is the main subject–The Green Mile, True Crime, and The Life of David Gale to name a few–are about innocent men on death row. They promulgate dramatized, even romantic visions of the issue that distort the realities — especially today, when DNA evidence has kept wrongful convictions to a minimum.

Leave it to the equally reliable and unpredictable documentarian Werner Herzog to deliver a more sobering depiction of capital punishment, getting to the heart of the issue, with Into the Abyss. Instead of concentrating on what it would feel like to be on death row–Hollywood’s routinely manipulative practice, which couldn’t be less relevant to the non-criminal viewer–Herzog tries to understand why a state kills in the first place.

Given the existential quandary that such a complex topic could have resulted in, especially at the hands of a less experienced documentarian, Herzog’s channeled and microscopic execution (no pun intended) is a real feat. He examines the full scope of the issue not through a desensitizing barrage of statistics and talking heads, but by chronicling one case in Texas, the capitol of capital punishment, from beginning to ‘end.’ The crime was a triple-homicide committed by two young men, one of whom (Michael Perry) is a mere eight days away from his last breath when he is first interviewed. Even though Perry denies responsibility for the murders–as does his accomplice, Jason Burkett–there is little objective doubt in light of the DNA evidence. But the purpose of Herzog’s film, as it takes the viewer through the senseless crime and all of its ripple effects (for the families of both the victims and the killers) is not to postulate why the murders occurred, but to ponder their larger social implications. Through the one case, Herzog examines the genetic cycle of violent crime (virtually every male in Burkett’s family has been imprisoned), the institutionalization of the capital punishment in Texas, the question of whether Perry’s death will improve the lives of his victims’ family, and more.

Herzog is upfront about his anti-death penalty views from the beginning, when he tells Perry, “When I talk to you, it does not necessarily mean that I have to like you, but I respect you and you are a human being, and I think human beings should not be executed.” But Into the Abyss rightfully avoids becoming a polemic. Instead, Herzog’s forms a much more compelling narrative against capital punishment simply through the accumulated power of his observations — he looks at every angle of this case and the procedure itself, but can’t come up with one good reason why Perry should be executed. Above all, Into the Abyss exposes the sheer anti-intellectualism of the death penalty.

Being a Herzog film, the interviews also often veer off in seemingly random directions that give the movie character, if not additional depth. For instance, Herzog’s interchanges with Burkett’s wife, who didn’t meet him until after he was in jail, don’t advance the film’s central thesis, but they are downright fascinating in their own right. (I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll just say: you will watch the film’s epilogue in a state of disbelief.) Needless to say, these segments’ harmonious co-existence with the rest of the material is something that only Herzog could pull off. Likewise, in the middle of two serious interchanges, Herzog stops to ask subjects about their tattoos — what other filmmaker would think to do that?

If there is a fault with Into the Abyss, it is that the movie doesn’t have much of a purpose for those viewers who are already opposed to capital punishment. Certainly, the film is a compelling look at the seemingly illogical institution and Herzog’s unique flourishes are often illuminating. However, it is also a serious downer — and is there any reason to put oneself through a depressing 107 minutes simply to confirm one’s pre-existing ideology? I am skeptical, but there is no doubt that Herzog has made the most accomplished, clear-eyed film on the topic in recent memory, if not all time.

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Into the Abyss (2011; Canada, Germany). Produced, directed, and written for the screen by Werner Herzog. Featuring Werner Herzog, Michael Perry, Jason Burkett, Jeremy Richardson, and Kristen Willis. Distributed by IFC Films. Rated PG-13, with a running time of 107 minutes.