Almost nothing in Werner Herzog’s fractured fairytale Bucking Fastards, playing in competition here at the Venice Film Festival, makes literal sense. But it all makes a kind of sideways sense, especially if, before watching, you can will yourself into a Herzogian brainspace, a place where possibly nonexistent elephants roam the Earth, where ancient cave drawings bear witness to the enduring creativity and wonder of humankind, where mad dreamers insist it’s possible to haul a multi-ton ship over a mountain. In that context, two inseparable sisters who speak only in unison, who are crazily lovesick over the man who has spurned them, and who believe they can dig a literal tunnel into a land of freedom, acceptance, and love: in a world where our deepest desires are so seldom met, how nuts does that really sound?
Real-life sisters Rooney Mara and Kate Mara play Joan and Jean Holbrooke, sisters living in Ireland—they are not, they adamantly insist, twins—who share every emotion, every thought, every waking moment as if they were a single entity. They dress exactly alike, in droopy trenchcoats and modest granny-style skirts; they both wear their long, silky hair parted neatly in the middle and tied partially back, like identical waterfalls. They don’t finish each other’s sentences; instead, they form their thoughts and words in unison and speak as one.
It’s an eerie effect the first time you hear it. Even more unsettling, it comes to sound completely normal as the movie wears on. Joan and Jean have fallen for a single man, their handsome rapscallion neighbor Gareth Mulroney (a saucy, salacious Orlando Bloom).
It’s love at first sight—or is that sights?—when he bursts into their local church, a tankard of beer in hand, stirring up nothing but trouble. Afterward, they breathlessly wait for him to emerge through the church doors. Their eyes gleaming like double constellations, they proposition him: “I’d love to show you my inner cowgirl!” they tell him, the words tumbling out more like a song than a sentence.
He’s charmed, intrigued; he’s horny. The trio land in bed, with Gareth in the middle flanked by his semi-nude cutie cowgirls, who ooh and ahh over him adoringly. They’re Goldilocks and he’s their just-right.
This is how a sex scene, as imagined by Herzog, plays out. But their bliss is short-lived. That meet-cute and its aftermath are relayed in flashback as the sisters huddle together in a courtroom, essentially defending themselves against charges of stalking.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
