Directed by Werner Herzog • 2009 • United States
Starring Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloë Sevigny

What strange series of events led a man to murder his mother with an ancient sword? Produced by David Lynch, Werner Herzog’s typically idiosyncratic take on a true crime unfolds as a fascinatingly fractured psychological puzzle in which a detective (Willem Dafoe) sets out to piece together the mysterious circumstances that cause an actor (a perfectly cast Michael Shannon at his most intense) to descend into madness. Combining elements of horror, hostage drama, and police procedural with an undercurrent of mordant comedy, MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE plays like a diabolical meeting point between Herzogian eccentricity and Lynchian surrealism.