Family Romance, LLC (Werner Herzog, 2019) (Patreon)

Herzog's latest -- a fiction film that often resembles a documentary -- is a frustrating film that I often wanted to exist in a form much different than it does. In the end, it won me over, for the most part, but only in the sense that I can afford it (and Herzog) a degree of grudging respect. Family Romance, LLC is a conceptual coup that "works" because Herzog doesn't present the material in its best or most challenging light. The film's sloppiness -- and it is indeed often sloppy -- functions to vouchsafe the film's faux-authenticity, whereas a better, more structurally astute film would have established a tacit understanding between Herzog and his audience, that we were examining the question of cinematic and emotional artifice, rather than circling the drain of mise-en-abyme.

Family Romance is based on the concept of a small company in Japan that provides what we might call emotional surrogacy. The head of the firm, and its lead "performer," is Yuichi Ishii, who plays a version of himself in the film. Although Family Romance briefly touches on various projects and assignments by the firm, the primary throughline focuses on a long-term gig in which Ishii is hired by a woman (Miki Fujimaki) to pose as the long-absent father of her 12-year-old daughter Mahiro (Mahiro Tanimoto). Although there are occasional intimations that Mahiro knows that Ishii is an impostor, for the most part she evinces a genuine acceptance of this hired actor as her father, and a bond forms that threatens to compromise the professional distance required by the business model.

Many critics have written about the rather slapdash quality of Family Romance, LLC, particularly the handheld videography shot by Herzog himself. This is not a problem as such, and with a bit more planning and initiative, the film would have been a fine example of one of those "digital quickies" that master filmmakers sometimes toss out, most notably Steven Soderbergh and, more recently, Spike Lee. But Herzog is not really working with his limitations here. For instance, some sort of chapter format or strong cutaway / separation model would have alleviated the awkward manner in which the "minor" assignments are introduced. They are amusing in themselves -- a reenactment of a lottery win; an employee's second-hand bollocking by his boss; a fake paparazzi shoot -- but are not integrated with the main narrative in any way.

As for the camerawork, it would have been fairly simple, and quite poignant, if Herzog employed one style of imagery for the LLC performance world (say, fixed frame or Steadicam), and another for "real life" (e.g., the handheld or YouTube aesthetic). But again, I came to recognize that I am asking Family Romance, LLC to be a different film than it actually is. Herzog is a feeler, not a thinker. Expecting him to produce an intellectual treatise on the crisis of artifice, in life and in cinema, is a hopeless ask. What the film does instead, and does quite well, is plunge into an abyss of uncertainty, even to the point where he himself cannot be sure of what he has made. Family Romance, LLC sticks in my craw, and I think that's its final value.

Stray final note: yes, Herzog's fiction films have been hit or miss, but let's not act as if My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? never happened. That film was awesome.