Werner Herzog, the renowned German director, has voiced strong opposition to the term 'neurodivergence' during the Venice Film Festival, calling it 'political correctness' that 'scares me under the table.' His comments came as he presented his first non-documentary feature in 17 years, Bucking Fastard, starring real-life sisters Kate and Rooney Mara.
Herzog Rejects 'Trendy Terms' for Characters
In the film, the Mara sisters play Jean and Joan Holbrooke, siblings who share bodies, speak in unison, dress identically, and have the same preoccupations. Herzog dismissed any clinical interpretation of his characters, stating, 'I do not relate to all these trendy terms – I just can't hear it, it dusts out of my ears.' He added, 'Neurodivergence sounds like there's some sort of clinical aberration – these sisters are dead centre.'
The protagonist pair fits into Herzog's gallery of single-minded outsiders, akin to characters from Aguirre or Fitzcarraldo. The film follows the sisters as they fall for their neighbour (Orlando Bloom), seek revenge when he marries another, and then embark on a quest to dig a tunnel from a cave in County Sligo to the Orkneys.
Inspired by Real-Life Twins
Bucking Fastard is loosely based on Freda and Greta Chaplin, twins from York known for their intense mutual attachment, whom Herzog met in the 1980s. The film's title comes from a spoonerism coined by the Chaplins in a court hearing. Unlike the Chaplins, the Holbrookes are ostracised but show resilience, finding allies and supporters.
Herzog noted a departure from his earlier works: 'What is certainly different [to my earlier films] is that the sisters are not just nice, they're vengeful. They are arsonists, they destroy things.'
A Softer Side and Social Media
Despite his reputation for bleak natural-world narratives, Bucking Fastard features a scene where the sisters rescue a baby fox. Herzog recounted, 'We had in mind to have a baby fox they would warm under their armpits, but we could not find one all over Ireland.' An animal dealer offered to procure one, but only if Herzog never asked how it was obtained, a condition he declined.
At 83, Herzog reflected on his work: 'What I do is lively and creates some inner life, some excitement and some joy in the storytelling. I'm not a control freak.' The film also includes a sequence shot in a karst cave system near Postojna, Slovenia, which he described as 'a landscape of the soul, a landscape of the imagination.'
Herzog's appeal to younger audiences is growing. He started an Instagram account last year at his son's urging, posting reels of himself barbecuing and doing DIY. He noted, 'A huge amount of audiences that contact me these days are 15, 16, maybe 17 years old.' He cited a 2024 retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris where the audience was 'all, all, all young people,' contrasting it with a prior Godard retrospective attended by those 'over 80.'
