When actor Viggo Mortensen was four years old, he was allowed to shoot a shotgun for the first time on his father’s lap. The two were on a wintry duck hunt in the moor, and while the father held the weight of the gun, he encouraged little Viggo to aim at the flying birds and pull the trigger.
Said and done. As luck would have it, a hit duck actually fell from the sky. Little Viggo was almost bursting with pride, later took her into the bathtub, dried her off and insisted that she sleep with him in bed. It was eaten the next day anyway. Which he found okay.
This episode, which he once told talk show host Conan O’Brien years ago, can be found as a flashback in Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut “Falling”. It is the only moment of real warmth between a father, who is already old and afflicted with dementia in the presence of the film, and a grown son who wants to take care of him. And as improbable as the sequence is, its details are convincing. Like the truth in the cinema sometimes.
Like Jesus, the son obediently turns the other cheek to his father
You can’t necessarily say that about the rest of the film. Because as a writer, Mortensen is determined to turn this old father into some kind of monster. Almost every time he opens his mouth, he spits anti-gay, misogynistic or racist abuse, often directed directly at his son or deceased wives. Soon all you can see in him is that careworn, pinched mouth that chokes out rubbish.
Rubbish, however, which is written with verve: often very pointed, occasionally bizarrely funny, mercilessly sadistically aiming at the weaknesses of the other. The actor Lance Henriksen, who used to have a beautiful stoic presence in the films of Ridley Scott or James Cameron, plays this with convincing force. But at some point you have a few questions for the writer of this tyrant.
If the old rule of thumb is correct that there is a narrator in all of his characters – and of course it is always correct without exception – then Viggo Mortensen has the passionate need to drain a lot of dirt under the cloak of a demented character. Which was not slowed down by the fact that hardly anyone wanted to give him money for the film. It then became a low-budget production, everyone filmed for minimum wage.
Then again, the narrator Mortensen is also in the character of the son, whom he plays himself. John, the little duck hunter, became gay later in life and now lives in intimate company with a husband and an adopted daughter in California. It is almost painful to see how he endures all the insults and humiliations from his father without defending himself or leaving the toxic old man to his fate. Like Jesus, he offers the other cheek, but a person cannot have as many cheeks as this strange saint has ready to strike. In the long run it is quite tiring.
One idea seems to be that demented family members have to be endured because they are no longer able to answer what they say. On the other hand, dementia only lets out what has grown in life, and so one wonders how the old man could become such a bundle of pure hatred. Is Falling saying that yesteryear duck hunter patriarchs who spend their lives on farms must end up like this? On the other hand, a lot of nostalgia creeps into the farm pictures, and city life looks pale.
As is well known, Viggo Mortensen played the invincible sovereign Aragorn in “Lord of the Rings”. Since then he has celebrated an image of serenity, Buddhist wisdom and liberal awakening that predestined him to be the god of wokeness in the present. The character of the son in “Falling” tells of exactly this longing, but while writing the film he must have noticed that he still has shotgun Viggo from the farm – and everything he carries with him.
The result is like an exciting look into the brain of a split personality, in which wild forces are wrestling with one another. Just not like a story that you can follow to the end. After all, such a thing would ultimately have to show wounds that explain something – a wounded father that made him so terrible, and a son’s need for love that could tie him to him for so long.
Falling, USA 2020 – Directed and written by Viggo Mortensen. Camera: Marcel Zyskind. With Lance Henriksen, Viggo Mortensen. Prokino, 112 minutes.