★★★★
“Lethally blonde.”
This is Broomfield’s second documentary around the topic of Aileen Wuornos, having previously made Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer. It’s a glorious doc – one of my all-time favorites – but is more tangential, being about those around Wuornos, seeking to exploit her situation for their own personal gain. He thought he was done with the topic, but he was called as a defense witness during Aileen’s final appeal against the multiple death sentences, largely because among those exploiters was her lawyer at the time, Steve Glazer. But around appearing in the witness box, Broomfield decided to make a second documentary, this time focusing on the woman at the centre of proceedings, all the way up to her execution by lethal injection in October 2002.
What I love about Broomfield’s work is, he goes where the story leads him. Some documentarians – and I’m looking at you, Michael Moore – go into production with An Agenda (caps used advisedly). They then craft the end product towards that agenda. To me, that’s less a documentary than propaganda. Broomfield seems to have a much more open mind, and the results sometimes end up going in unexpected directions. Here, it’s clear that he has sympathy for Wuornos, but doesn’t pull any punches about her personality and mental state. He presents footage both of her claiming self-defense and absolutely confessing to having committed cold-blooded murder. The scary thing is, Wuornos appeared to me to be highly credible in each, contradictory situation. Maybe I’m just easily fooled. Sobering.
Certainly, there is evidence of Aileen’s anger issues. During his final interview, we see how she can go from calm discussion to volcanic ferocity in short order, for little or no reason, and storming out while flipping Broomfield the bird. If there had been a firearm to hand during this outburst… Yeah, watching this, the idea of her killing seven in less than a year definitely seemed possible. Rage and easy access to guns is a dangerous combination. But as the film proceeds, it appears Wuornos’s mental situation deteriorates into frequent surges of paranoia, claiming mind-control weapons are being used on her, and that the cops knew who she was after the first murder, and let her continue killing so they could exploit things in the media.
Should someone so clearly ill in the head be executed? Political considerations – it being an election year, with the governor wanting to appear strong on crime – appear to have overridden any judicial concerns. A cursory mental exam pronounced her fit to die, and the sentence was duly carried out. On that day, Broomfield was interviewed by the media (a classic case of the snake eating its own tail). He said, “Here was somebody who is has obviously lost her mind, has totally lost touch with reality. We’re executing a person who’s mad, and I don’t really know what kind of message that gives.” As someone not averse to the death penalty, this documentary certainly made me pause for thought, and that alone proves its quality.
Dir: Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill