Werner Herzog remains cinema's most uncompromising visionary, and his latest provocation confirms it. "Bucking Fastard," a film so deliberately antagonistic it bypassed Cannes entirely for the Venice Film Festival, represents Herzog at his most defiant and thematically knotted.
The German auteur spoke with IndieWire about his methodical approach to extracting performance, a skill honed across five decades of documentaries and narrative features. Herzog claims he has consistently achieved "the very, very best" from his actors, a statement that carries weight given his reputation for demanding absolute commitment. This time, he enlisted Rooney and Kate Mara as twins who move and speak in near-perfect unison. The casting choice alone signals Herzog's interest in uncanny human synchronicity, a theme that threads through much of his recent work.
The film's title alone positions it as confrontational. "Bucking Fastard" doesn't announce itself as prestige cinema. It rejects the courteous branding conventions that typically accompany festival submissions. By choosing Venice over Cannes, Herzog sidestepped the world's most commercially visible film festival, opting instead for a venue traditionally sympathetic to experimental and philosophical work. This decision speaks volumes about the film's likely texture and ambitions.
Herzog's comments to IndieWire reference conversations about David Lynch and artificial intelligence, two subjects that have occupied cultural criticism in recent years. His willingness to engage both names suggests "Bucking Fastard" does not exist in aesthetic isolation. Lynch's influence permeates contemporary cinema, his blend of the grotesque and the sublime now shorthand for prestige weirdness. AI, meanwhile, has become unavoidable in artistic discourse, whether as threat, tool, or both.
The Mara sisters have collaborated before, but never under Herzog's direction. Rooney's film work has traditionally favored independence and character complexity, while Kate has pursued a mix of prestige drama and larger productions. Herzog's method likely presented both with scenarios far removed from standard directorial procedures. His documentaries have always emphasized reality in its rawest state. When he turns to fiction, that documentary impulse remains, resulting in performances that feel ethnographic rather than theatrical.
Herzog's insistence on extracting greatness from actors contradicts the notion that acting happens to performers. In his view, acting is something extracted, wrested, earned through pressure. His collaborations with Klaus Kinski remain the gold standard for this philosophy, though Kinski himself was volatile and resistant. Herzog treated conflict as creative fuel. Whether the Mara twins submitted to similar pressure remains unclear, but the claim that they move and speak in near-perfect unison suggests choreographed constraint rather than naturalistic freedom.
Venice's 2024 lineup has become increasingly reflective of global cinema's philosophical currents. Herzog's submission fits comfortably within that tradition. His career has always positioned him outside commercial compromise, a posture that grows rarer and more audacious with each passing year.
"Bucking Fastard" will premiere at Venice as the kind of film that generates debate before critics even leave the theater. Herzog continues to believe that cinema can still provoke, still challenge, still demand something from its audience that commercial platforms refuse to attempt.