Preview:
Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss (2011) opens with a harrowing account by a chaplain of being with each convict as they are executed. He describes how he ‘empties’ himself of all notions and expectations, making himself a mere vessel to be filled with the experience. All proper and humble, until his voice cracks, and he has to stop and pause; it’s at this point you realize that along with all the talk of being ‘in the proper frame of mind,’ of ‘preparing oneself to be filled with the experience,’ one must deal with the cost of watching men and women being strapped down and killed, again and again and again.