According to a Gallup poll conducted last month, 61 percent of Americans are in favor of the death penalty for those convicted of murder. Only 35 percent are not. It wouldn’t surprise me to see that approval rating rise after the release of the documentary “Into the Abyss.” Which is a strange thing to say, since the man who made it firmly disapproves of capital punishment. But Werner Herzog never fails to surprise. Here, he explores a contentious topic that makes its way to the top of American consciousness with regularity — usually when a high-profile prisoner is set to be executed.
“In eight days, these people want to murder me,” declares Michael Perry, a 28-year-old on death row for a triple homicide committed 10 years ago. He’s the focus of Herzog’s arresting film. Perry and accomplice Jason Burkett were convicted of killing three people to gain possession of a red Camaro.
| On screen |
| ‘Into the Abyss’ |
| 3.5 out of 4 stars |
| Stars: Michael Perry, Jason Burkett, Werner Herzog |
| Director: Werner Herzog |
| Rated: Not rated |
| Running time: 107 minutes |
Burkett received a sentence that will likely see him in jail for the rest of his life; he faces Herzog and his camera with an unsmiling face, eyes cast down. Perry, on the other hand, is smug, grinning as soon as he steps into the visitors’ booth.
Though his name isn’t a household one, Herzog always manages to secure great access — in “Cave,” he became the only person allowed to film inside France’s Chauvet Cave — and this is no exception. His camera travels right into the abyss, the execution chamber. He speaks with the prisoners, the families of their victims, and the men who put into practice Texas’ execution policy.
One of the saddest discoveries he makes is that the lives of the perpetrators and the victims are almost equally troubled. Burkett’s father, interviewed from jail, has spent most of his life in the slammer. “I wish I could take the time, his time,” he says of his son, accepting his own culpability for what happened.
If there is a weakness in Herzog’s film, surely a masterpiece of the genre, it’s that we don’t hear enough from the men who were convicted of the central crimes. But it might not be fair to blame the filmmaker. Perry insists, “There’s no question of my innocence anymore.” Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, he continued to declare his innocence until the day he died. He had an insouciant attitude about his approaching death. “I’m a Christian. Paradise awaits one way or another,” he says, displaying a fresh take on traditional theology.
In fact, he confessed to his crimes in an ambulance after a shootout. Why? And why did this self-satisfied savage believe a car was worth three lives? Even the more penitent Burkett doesn’t reveal what was in the two teenagers’ minds that fateful night.
Perhaps murder is something that must remain inexplicable, to some degree. Near the end of the film, Herzog shows us the one thing we do know was a cause of these three homicides. The red Camaro, 10 years later, is still in a police impound lot in Texas.
