SnoopyStyle Filmmaker Werner Herzog does a documentary about Michael James Perry. He's on death row in Livingston, Texas scheduled to be executed in 8 days. He was convicted along with his friend Jason Burkett for a triple homicide. They killed a housewife in her home to steal a car and then killed two young people to get passcode for the community gate. This is not really a whodunit unless you believe Burkett or even Perry. It's not impossible to believe them and there are certainly people willing to do that. This is really about the whole society in general. It is about the victims. It is about the daughter who lost her family. It is about Burkett's father who watches his various family members get incarcerated along with him. It is about the friend and Herzog who is more interested in him learning to read as an adult. It is about the executioner who had to quit. This is quite a tapestry of Texan life.

bob the moo When I sat to watch this I knew it was a Herzog film but still in my mind I thought it would have an agenda – even more so when he makes it clear near the very start of the film that he is against the death penalty. Given the subject matter, the back stories and the level of access he has, this could so easily have been a film that lays out this agenda very clearly and with strength, so it is to his credit that this isn't what he does. Truth be told, it may have been a "better" film if he had done this because as it is one of the weaknesses of the film is that there isn't really an agenda or point to be made but rather we wander through the people and their stories with the double murder and the impending execution as the point from which we start.I can understand why this approach will leave some viewers cold, because it does appear to be an agenda film and generally one does like to be led to something rather than just presented with everything, but with Herzog it is perhaps not too much of a surprise. What we get instead is hard to describe but it is very much about us settling down into humanity and seeing the hurt, the loss and the pointlessness of all of it – from the murder (over a rather tacky car) through to the eventual actions by the State. There is pain, regret, bad choices, bad circumstances, stupidity and waste across the whole film and it is hard to really get to grips with beyond just experiencing it and taking some of it with you. I guess the title is apt, because the only thing the film seems to do is take us into this abyss and then leave us there. In this journey it is engaging and depressing in equal measure, but the lack of structure and aim (even delivered via the edit) is very much a weakness that even that those that love the film will concede.It doesn't make it bad though, because it isn't – it is engaging throughout. However it is weaker than it could have been. Herzog doesn't seem to push his subjects and gives them too much room, while tragic there is a lot of blame and deliberate decisions on display here and it must be said that he sits back off this in a way that surprised me. At times he has the magic touch/luck to get nuggets from people with this approach (the squirrel story at the start) but at other times it seems too soft, too unfocused, too much about the "experience" rather than the meat.So in this regard it is weak in certain, important areas but yet mostly it still just about works. Less of a documentary, more of a stroll through misery, he just about manages to avoid it being naval gazing (I read some reviews saying it was wallowing for the sake of it) but for sure he gets close some times. The pain, the pointlessness and the waste is real though and he lets this simply become apparent to us by letting people talk; this much engages and depresses and I guess this is ultimately the goal of the film from Herzog's point of view.

jzappa It's easy to view documentaries as less yielding of creative potential or stylistic freedom since principally it's a matter of holding a lens up to a story that's writing itself, casting itself and no sets have to be built. Werner Herzog has never been limited by this concern.Many documentaries made nowadays are a series of talking heads and graphics montages. Maybe a filmmaker with a sense of humor will throw some ironically relevant music under the info-dumps. And documentary has also become virtually synonymous with issue and message films. Very few seem to find the same spiritual center as a fiction piece. Herzog does.Into the Abyss is about a horrific, random and senseless crime spree that culminates in one of the myriad executions carried out by the state of Texas every year. But it's not a commentary on capital punishment or the society that produced such brainless, directionless criminals. It does something much more brave and original.The movie goes on, the story is told, Herzog interviews his subjects, crime scene videotape details the nightmarish aftermath of atrocity having invaded the most peaceful and complacent of homes, we drive down depressing roads in the modern cultural wasteland of the place where the tragic saga has played out. And yet throughout, there is a tone and inflection imbued with grace, understatement and objectivity. We will experience all too real human pain, sometimes without warning, but we almost don't know what hit us until we've traversed well into the given moment.There is something so simple, so docile, in the face of whatever brutality or doom or emotional quakes, making Herzog's film transcend the identity of a social issue piece or a sensationalistic expose to become an elliptical, humane contemplation of violence, life and loss. Considering Herzog's uncannily unique subjects and treatment in fiction and in documentary for decades---past films have involved entire casts being under hypnosis during shooting or being entirely comprised of dwarfs, or stories about men held captive in dungeons for lifetimes until adulthood---Into the Abyss may seem small potatoes by comparison.But Herzog has often said he doesn't choose projects, that they instead choose him. If that's the case, then his approach as a documentary filmmaker, with works such as this or Grizzly Man or The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, is frankly uncanny, to stand still when he realizes the profundity of a story and simply allow it to wash over him and consume him. How many filmmakers have the wisdom and confidence to master such a process?

room102 FIRST REVIEW - Written on 21 September 2012Werner Herzog documentary about death row. Or that what I expected. Unfortunately, this documentary goes into much detail about a specific murder case, without exploring the really important and interesting questions about sentencing someone to be killed. He interviews too many people and should have edited out many parts. The more people he interviews, the more you understand that you're dealing with white trash that were raised like assholes and were almost destined to be in prison. It's like a whole town of white trash, really hard to grasp. Most of the interviewees seem frank and pretty well-spoken, except for Perry who's obviously lying out of his ass and still claims to be innocent, even 8 days before his execution (and on his last statement). The documentary is sometimes interesting, at other times it's a bit boring and in general it only touches the surface.Herzog explicitly says he's against the death sentence and it seems the movie was made in order to promote that idea, but I can say for Herzog's credit that the documentary pretty balanced in its view (unliked Michael Moore's films, which are totally biased towards his view). Still, after watching the movie, my view hasn't changed and I basically agree that death sentence is right - some people, like Michael Perry, deserve to die for their crimes. From what I understand, there was no doubt he did the crimes and that he did it on purpose - I don't see any reason why someone like that should live another day. From that respect, it seems like Herzog failed to deliver his message against the death sentence, since it didn't make me change my view on the subject.4.5/10SECOND REVIEW - Written on 21 September 2017(I wrote the original review 5 years earlier to the day - I swear it's a coincidence; Also, I wrote the second review BEFORE reading my original review)A documentary by Werner Herzog about a death row prisoner, several days before his execution. It spends too much time on the details of the case, which is respectful to the victims and their family but this section should have been a lot shorter since the subject of this film is the death penalty, not the specific case.I also don't like how Herzog try to shove his objection to the death penalty all the time - up to the point of more or less putting words in the interviewer's mouth - which is probably the reason I gave this film a 5/10 last time. If anything, the film strengthens my view that some criminals deserve to die. There is no reason a murderer should continue to live, have his family visit him and procreate while the victim can't do any of these. Even on death row the guy takes no responsibility and can only think of himself: How can he safe himself from death, how he should be the one to forgive the others. It doesn't matter if he was young when he did it. One has to be sub-human to kill three people for a lousy car. The victims won't see their family again, they won't have children. There is no reason the murderer should have those privileges. And as for the women who go and marry those people - whether they are that desperate or seek money, fame or just attracted to power in any shape or form - I guess that's something I'll never understand.6.5/10 Recommended