When I first heard about Into the Abyss (which was about ten minutes before I walked into the theater), I was worried: a documentary on corporal punishment set in Texas by zee German Werner Herzog. It didn't seem fair. How could a guy like Werner Herzog, who shocks us in the film's first minutes by saying that he's adamantly against the death penalty, create a balanced documentary on the issue? Without realizing it, I had prepared myself for a Michael Moore-esque debacle. What I got was much better.
Into the Abyss is about as even-handed and balanced a documentary as you're likely to see. It's been rightly compared to Capote's book In Cold Blood, presumably for the way it details a non-fiction story by structuring it as though it were fiction. The film begins with a harrowing segment dedicated to the murder itself, a triple homicide that lands Michael Perry and Jason Burkett in jail and rattles the small town of Conroe, Texas. Although it's mostly stock crime scene footage from years ago, it's still extremely unsettling and it's made even more so by the jarring orchestral accompaniment. This is truly terrifying stuff that puts all the found-footage movies that have come out lately to shame (I'm looking at you, PA). The virtually absent motive, the dead silence of the house, the dark walk to Crater Lake "¦ it's all very atmospheric and unnerving.
From here, Herzog moves into the meat of his story, which is composed of a series of interviews with friends and family members from across the board. We hear from the victims' families, the killer, his accomplice, friends, lawyers, executioners, etc. Herzog's camera outstays its welcome once or twice, and as a result, some moments feel inauthentic and forced, but typically he does a fantastic job of allowing the interviews to speak for themselves.
I still can't believe I saw it: a foreign documentary about the death penalty set in rural Texas in which the criminal wasn't a martyr and the interviews with the locals were played with a straight face. Into the Abyss is heartfelt, emotional, polarizing stuff and is definitely worth seeking out.
