Ten years ago, 19-year-old Michael Perry and Jason Boggart were charged with killing three people. The former was sentenced to death and the latter was jailed for life without bail. Perry was about to be executed when Herzog made the film. The film uses an interview style. If the author does not want to make his thoughts too obvious, he can leave the questioner "present", but Herzog has no intention of this. He let us hear his questions, and even the answers, when he first met Perry and when he spoke to the victim's family, Sandra, he made it clear that he was not in favor of the death penalty. From the structure of the film, the first interviewee to appear is the priest who confesses to the death row (with the cross in the cemetery behind him), who talks about life; the last to appear is Boggart's wife, who manages to Let herself be pregnant, the phone is a blurred photo of B-ultrasound, she is still showing life. Herzog didn't make any cover up about his attitude, but with such an opinion first, he didn't make [Gaze into the Abyss] become a one-dimensional anti-death penalty cry.
He interviewed the client, the victim's family, the criminal's friends, relatives, and the police, and he tried to restore the death that happened. The two criminals are indeed not citizens who conform to mainstream values. The most disgusting statement is that they are also bastards. Their original crimes were indeed cruel and crazy, and their intentions were childish and ridiculous. Sooner or later, even Boggart's father is an old prisoner in prison. This is the dark side of Ke Luo City, and the appearance of the entire abyss emerges. We can understand these layouts as some kind of technique, which places the birth of the murderer in the big environment, and the clues are connected by the hidden accomplices, so that the sins of the death row inmates themselves are diluted and shared. Or, it is an angle, they are not Eichmanns, enslaved by modernity, turning killing into a process; nor are they Raskolnikovs, caught up in Superman's rebuke, turning back and forth before committing murder . Literally "temporary murder" is the standard answer.
The victim's account is equally intriguing. We see more sentimentality than anger. No one said that someone must die, but after the death penalty, they felt a certain burden was taken away. Is that the weight of the soul? Whose soul is it? 21 grams, or 84 grams, including the dead and the murderer? Some would say that Herzog chose a group of merciful people, but not all of the victims' relationships can be so calm. There will always be people who ask back, if it was your relatives who were killed, would you still forgive the murderer?
This is probably the essence of the abyss. It cannot talk and is only responsible for swallowing. Therefore, the death penalty is most suitable for the battlefield of thinking. Similarly, there are a series of ultimate issues such as abortion and euthanasia. Thinking and behavior create a huge tension in these issues because they are not things that can be experienced, and once you experience them, you may become Perry or Sandra in the film. In this sense, we are all people staring into the abyss. You may never encounter these things in your life, but if you do, you have no chance to ask why after you resist. If you don't know how to get started, Herzog's image is just right.
But Herzog's gazers may be someone else. "The Old Testament. Genesis" opens with the words: "The earth is empty and chaotic, and the face of the deep is dark..." God's Spiritual Luck walks on it. What is this Spiritual Luck? In a world where the death penalty is left, maybe it's just the soles of his feet. This may be his kindness - after all, they came to the surface of the abyss, staring at the human world below, a cracked world.
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