AILEEN: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER Rating: (out of 5 stars) Directors: Nick Broomfield, Joan Churchill Producer: Jo Human Writers: Nick Broomfield, Joan Churchill Director of Photography: Joan Churchill Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew

(Read more 2003 AFI Film Festival reviews)

Review by: Warren Curry
11/9/03

Nick Broomfield's documentaries (Kurt & Courtney, Biggie and Tupac) are usually the cinematic equivalent of junk food -- easy to consume and the copious amounts of sugar give you an immediate rush. But when it's all been ingested, and you start to come down from the sugar high, the realization sets in that you've gained little of substance. Some could call Broomfield's films just a step or two above trashy tabloid television, and it's hard not to understand where the sentiment comes from. But it's also difficult to deny that his movies are hugely involving.

Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer, a follow up to Broomfield's 1992 film, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, is a definite notch below his previous output both in terms of the trash journalism factor and entertainment value. Maybe it's because Broomfield made this film with a partner, Joan Churchill, or due to the fact that Broomfield has stated that this is the one film he didn't choose to make. Broomfield was served with a subpoena to testify as a witness for female serial murderer Aileen Wuornos at her final appeal before she would be executed in Florida. This documentary is an account of Broomfield's journey to Florida, where he tries to piece together the jagged fragments of Wuornos' life and deliver a charged anti-death penalty statement in the process.

Using footage from the previous Wuornos doc, which centered on the various entities looking to make a fast buck off of the woman's story, Broomfield and Churchill have a more humanistic than exploitative aim here. What we learn about Wuornos' early life doesn't come as much of a surprise -- born in Michigan, she was abandoned by her biological mother, raised and abused by her grandfather, sexually promiscuous at a young age (to quote Broomfield, "she was trading blowjobs for cigarettes at age 9"), involved in a marriage that lasted one month, and later began a life of prostitution in Florida that lead to her murder spree.

Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer continues the look into the number of figures -- friends, authority figures, an ex-lawyer -- who wish to profit from Wuornos' ordeal. It also shines light on the woman's apparent lack of mental stability. At this point, Wuornos can no longer stand being on death row, and does everything possible to ensure that her execution will not be delayed any further. She tries to ruin the credibility of witnesses called on her behalf, and claims her previous allegations -- that the murders were committed in self-defense -- were complete fabrications. The only thing she wishes to do is expose corruption in the ranks of the Florida police. She makes the wild accusation that the authorities let her killing spree continue, even though they knew that she was the offender, in an effort to cultivate a media-friendly and potentially profitable "serial killer story."

Broomfield maintains his belief that the first Wuornos murder was committed in self-defense and following the crime, mentally and emotionally, she completely snapped, which resulted in 6 more killings. At one point, when the camera is not on Wuornos and the woman thinks they have stopped filming, she admits to Broomfield that the murders were a matter of self-defense. But if we are to believe Broomfield's assertion that Wuornos' mental state is completely ravaged, then it's impossible to make heads or tails of anything she's saying.

Of course, Broomfield makes himself a big star of the movie, but the reason is understandable. A key component of the documentary is the relationship between the filmmaker and subject, and Broomfield and Wuornos have a surprising bond -- two complete opposites who almost seem like they could be childhood friends. His inimitable deadpan narration lends his documentaries a style all their own.

As a staunch death penalty opponent, I'm not quite sure how well the film really argues its point about the issue. Let's face it, if you're trying to change minds or galvanize the support of neutral observers, it's difficult to do so by using the case of a serial killer as an example of the system's flaws. The film points an accusatory finger at Florida governor, Jeb Bush, and ridicules his 11th hour psychological evaluation of Wuornos in which psychiatrists deemed the woman mentally fit after only 15 minutes. While, assuming the accuracy of this information, it does seem a laughably brief amount of time for a thorough examination to be conducted, this film, in the course of 90 minutes, didn't totally convince me that Wuornos was not sane. She just seems beaten down, resigned to her fate, and even a bit calculating.

Because the film largely dispenses with the sensationalistic angle (although it's unmistakably a Broomfied film), Aileen isn't quite as moment-by-moment enthralling as some of Broomfield's earlier work. This is the director's statement movie, but his approach is much more direct and much less intellectual than, say, an Errol Morris; therefore the message doesn't resound quite as powerfully as the movie wishes it would.

But taking the long view, this is a smart direction for Broomfied to head in, and if he has to sacrifice some cheap thrills in exchange for films that have a more subtle but long-lasting impact, the move will be well made.

(A Lantern Lane Entertainment release. Opens in limited release on January 9, 2004.)

(Screened at the 2003 AFI Film Festival.)

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