Werner Herzog returns to the Toronto film scene with Into the Abyss, another existential work strangely similar yet totally unlike his last documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams. The documentary is both a rumination on the meaning of life and a true crime story, a version of In Cold Blood for the twenty-first century. Herzog recounts a triple-homicide in Conroe, Texas in 2001 when Michael James Perry and Jason Burkett killed three people in order to steal a Camaro. Interviewing friends and family of the victims and perpetrators, Into the Abyss exposes the audience to lives impacted by poverty and marred by violence. The desperation of Perry and Burkett at the time of the crime is not new to the area, where broken homes, missing parents and a lack of social support lead to terrible decisions.
Perry faces execution within eight days whereas Burkett is serving a life sentence. Burkett may have been spared the death penalty because of testimony from his father, who was missing from his son’s life due to multiple jail sentences. Now both are serving life terms with no chance of parole for forty years. As a result of his appeals, Burkett met a pro-bono attorney; the two were married in the visitor’s room of the prison and she is expecting a child conceived by artificial insemination.
The immediate sense after watching the film is the pointlessness of the entire episode. The ignorance of the young men who committed the crime is balanced by the indifference towards those who are less fortunate. This could have been prevented had the system focused on early intervention rather than punishment. Perry was hardly remorseful about his actions and somewhat defiant about his fate (as he had been towards authority throughout his youth). Nevertheless, everyone is in control of their actions and can choose to behave positively or negatively.
Online research shows that some facts are in dispute. Herzog spends the first half of the film recapping the events of the crime and the fact that he does not discuss some of the appeals and controversies seems superficial. Meaningful interviews follow with a former prison guard who resigned because of his opposition to capital punishment and Burkett’s wife. Their responses highlight the humanity of prison inmates who seem almost inhuman because of their actions.
The documentary’s twist – the Burketts’ decision to have a child – allows Herzog to juxtapose the end of one life with the beginning of another. Burkett wants to be a better dad than his own father was for him but given that he will be incarcerated for the rest of his life, the audience wonders what will happen to this child. Will the child follow a path like Perry and Burkett or will they show that unconventional families can still provide a loving upbringing? Will anyone learn anything from this violence and multiple deaths or will the cycle repeat again and again? Like Friedrich Nietzsche said: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” ***