Arnon Grunberg

Allure

Tidy and dull

A little less than twenty years ago somewhere in Amsterdam I saw Abel Ferrara’s movie “Bad Lieutenant”.
Tonight I saw Werner Herzog’s “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans”.
I never liked Nicholas Cage very much. I could not stand the movie “Leaving Las Vegas” including Nicholas Cage's performance. But after seeing Werner Herzog’s movie I wholeheartedly agree with what A.O. Scott wrote in the Times: “Fueled by Nicolas Cage’s performance — which requires adjectives as yet uncoined, typed with both the caps-lock key and the italics button engaged — Mr. Herzog’s film is a pulpy, glorious mess. Its maniacal unpredictability is such a blast that it reminds you just how tidy and dull most crime thrillers are these days.”

“The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans” is a movie about madness that never completely spins out of control.
As A.O. Scott writes: “For nearly 40 years Mr. Herzog has pursued madness and unreason in various manifestations — he found them, most reliably, in the person of Klaus Kinski — and sometimes succumbed to their allure.”

That’s what we are here for, to pursue unreason.