What starts out as an oddball courtroom drama quickly morphs into something entirely different, then changes course again in the most unexpected way, Bucking Fastard, a new narrative film by legendary 84-year-old filmmaker, Werner Herzog, provides us with surprises at every turn.
The Holbrooke sisters, Jean (Kate Mara) and Joan (Rooney Mara), with matching outfits, are seated in a courtroom, speaking in unison. They are accused of stalking and being violent toward their hunky limo driver neighbor Mulroney (Orlando Bloom), whom the sisters have been obsessing over, ever since they laid their eyes on him at a local church they attend. He is the love of their lives.
For Mulroney, the Holbrookes were just some birds to fool around with, while preparing to marry Gwen, his fiancée. But once the sisters found out about Gwen, it's scorched-earth time, breaking the windshield of his limo, breaking and entering, constant physical and verbal harassment, and even arson, while maintaining their devotion and love reserved for Mulroney. The judge has had enough of their nonsense and places a restraining order against the sisters. But nothing, not even the law, will stop them from loving him.
After the sisters start a fire in the mail box, in the hopes of burning love letters that supposedly Gwen and Mulroney exchange, an old neighbor takes pity on them and helps them relocate to another town, far away from Mulroney, into an apartment that he owns, in an industrial part of the town overlooking the harbor. The old man, fearing for their safety in a world full of wolves, instructs them not to open the door for anyone, other than himself and kind-hearted social worker Timothy (Domhnall Gleeson). Timothy helps them to settle into their new environment, showing them how to shop and where to place furniture around the house, because the Holbrookes are like children, not accustomed to the ways of the world.
But not long after we settle down in the new town with the sisters, things change again, as they are invited to stay with their aunt in the countryside. She has a farm at the foot of a mountain with large caves on the top of the hillside. This setting provides an awe-inspiring, truly Herzogian landscape from the cave looking down the valley. As the sisters explore the empty cave, they are told by an old sheep herder about the legend of a cave digger who finds a new world on the other side.
With chisels, wheel barrows and workgloves, the sisters start obsessively chipping away at he cave walls, digging a tunnel, day and night, refusing to eat, even. Months have gone by and they are tired and tempers flare. Is it all worth it? The point is not about the tunnel, but the process. They tell themselves. They are about to give up digging, until....
Bucking Fastard is a story about obsession and if you are familiar with Herzog's filmography, the man knows a few things about obsessive characters: Dragging a boat over a mountain in Fitzcarraldo; a man's destructive quest for El Dorado in Aguirre, Wrath of God; and a man who dedicates himself to preserving wild bears in Alaska even if it means risking his life, in Grizzly Man, just to name a few. The Holbrooke sisters, first latching on to a man they deem as worthy of their love and affection, then digging a hole inside a cave to find a world where they can belong, certainly fit the description of obsessive characters.
The Mara sisters, working together for the first time, are perfectly in tune with being one person in two bodies, and are marvelous as the Holbrookes. And they seem to be having an absolute blast. They get to blurt out such Herzogian lines as, "Everyone needs to dig a hole through the mountains!" They embody the characters who are both innocent yet extremely mischievous in their actions.
The film immediately reminded me of Jean-Pierre Gorin's fascinating documentary Poto and Cabengo, about the twin sisters, raised in isolation, who developed their own language- a truly Herzogian documentary about the girls creating their own world. The grown up sisters not knowing the way of the world also reminded me of Herzog's Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, starring Bruno S., about a boy who was brought up in a confined room, without knowing the outside world. When Hauser was finally released, he saw the world with such innocent and pure eyes, and possessed childlike, yet otherworldly wisdom. And the last third of the movie resembles The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Herzog's documentary exploration of the Chauvet cave that had never been seen by human eye before, and his contemplation on 36,000 year old gorgeous cave paintings left in there by our ancestors.
Dedicated to the late David Lynch, Bucking Fastard isn’t exactly Lynchian. It might be Lynchian in a way My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done was, vibe-wise. But Bucking Fastard is all Herzog. It is full of absurdly amusing moments - there's a forklift operator who has hots for the sisters, and doesn't mind giving them a lift on his forklift to their door. Then there is a warehouse owner who peeps on the sisters through the windows from the rooftop across the building. So the sisters grease the roof. It also features a fox which the sisters rescue from the hunters, reminding you of the scene from Grizzly Man with Timothy Treadwell and his fox friends. The fox plays a pivotal role later on in the film as well.
Extremely funny, whimsical and full of surprises at every turn, Herzog, delving into narrative filmmaking for the first time in more than a decade, creates a fairytale for adults that only he can conjure up. It’s wondrous and constantly surprising, a real cinematic pleasure.
