There but for the grace of God....that's all I kept thinking as I spent 105 minutes watching INTO THE ABYSS, a wrenching compelling documentary from director Werner Herzog. It examines the emotional aftermath of a triple murder in Texas, interviewing the two convicted killers, their relatives, the victims' families and law-enforcement officials involved in the case. It is absorbing from the first to last moment, but I admit that at one point I stopped the film and took a 15 minute break. I needed a relief from the relentless sadness of the piece. This story takes place in what appears to be a highly poor and uneducated town in Texas. Illiteracy, drugs, welfare, etc seem to be the norm. Criminal life is passed down from Father to Son. I have seen a few other Herzog films and this is by far the most powerful. The sections of the film dealing with the murders are hair-raising and the access to Death Row and the countdown to an inevitable execution made my stomach churn. INTO THE ABYSS will not be for everyone, but it is a film I won't soon forget. When it ended, I exhaled slowly. There but for the grace of God....
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