Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard” premieres in Venice

By the second day on Venice’s Lido, a second young festivalgoer had been spotted wearing the same T-shirt: “What would Herzog do?” Werner Herzog’s rough-edged authenticity, part guru and part adventurer, has made him a global pop figure among independent filmmakers.

Now Venice offers a chance to see what Herzog has been doing in recent months. His new feature, “Bucking Fastard,” is screening in competition.

The film is loosely based on the lives of identical twin sisters Greta and Freda Chaplin, born in York, England, in 1943. The pair became suddenly famous in the early 1980s after appearing in court and receiving one-month prison sentences for disturbing the public order by harassing a local truck driver.

Before the judge, as in life, the sisters appeared as an inseparable unit. They insisted together that they were innocent and accused the prosecutor of betraying their shared love. Herzog’s title comes from a synchronized verbal slip the twins made during the hearing. That moment appears at the beginning of the film.