Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer

Released:  January 9^th, 2004

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Lantern Lane Entertainment

Starring:  Aileen Wuornos, Nick Broomfield

Directed by:  Nick Broomfield, Joan Churchill

Personal Bias Alert:  have seen Monster, doesn’t support the death penalty

8 of 10

            To call Aileen:  Life and Death of a Serial Killer disturbing would be an understatement.  Murder, rape, abuse, childhood bullies, and politics all play a role in the story of Aileen Wuornos, whom the media dubbed as ‘America’s first female serial killer.’  Not surprisingly, the story was sold to Hollywood and made into the Oscar-winning drama Monster, but documentarian Nick Broomfield had already been covering the story for over a decade, releasing Aileen Wuornos:  The Selling of a Serial Killer in 1992 and returning to document her execution for this film.  Over the years, he and Aileen had formed a rather solid bond, gaining him and his audience an up-close look at the disintegration of a woman who had spent ten years on death row.

            For all the accoutrement surrounding Aileen, it’s her flimsy mental state that provides the outright horror in the film.   As Broomfield and partner Joan Churchill explain through interviews with childhood friends, Aileen never got a solid education nor the opportunity for a regular life.  This led her to becoming a runaway, a highway prostitute, and eventually a prolific killer.  Her actions in 1989-1990 caused the death of seven men and are undeniably horrendous, but in a country that allegedly doesn’t execute the mentally impaired, it’s shocking to watch someone exhibit classic signs of mental disorder, clearly misunderstand the court proceedings, and then be put to death.

            Broomfield, working with a low-fi camera and microphone setup and often appearing onscreen himself, openly questions the execution, but retains an admirable amount of reality.  He doesn’t hide that Aileen is dangerous and likely to kill again if released, which makes his humanist approach with her all the more compelling.  Through a series of interviews that are as intimate as you can get with someone on death row, Broomfield shows Aileen in all of her broken glory.  It’s a bit like watching a caged lion hissing and spatting; there’s moments when you forget about the cage separating you, and the chill of being hunted runs down your spine.  But other times you feel sorry for the poor beast, outwitted by a system it’s never fully understood.  It’s okay, Broomfield seems to be imploring, to show these monsters some empathy, and his greatest success comes when he makes the audience feel just that.

            While the low-fi style certainly helped Broomfield pull off this feat, it also remains a bit obtrusive, constantly reminding the audience of the filmmaker’s presence and guiding hand.  Whether this bothers you or not will likely come down to personal taste, but it does lead to some thorny issues when you look back on the film.  Unlike Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss, Broomfield never explicitly states his point of view on capital punishment and doesn’t acknowledge his own country’s history with the issue (Broomfield is British, not American).  As these aspects would certainly influence his views on Aileen’s case, his own prominence in the film becomes questionably slanted, even beyond his clearly intimate relationship with his subject.

            What can’t be questioned is the infinite watchability of Aileen, who rails in long, disjointed yelling fits that don’t quite make sense.  Some of it’s sheer nonsense, but other times it’s a much more subtle breakdown.  She can be talking quite clearly only to take off into a rage, her face hardening and her eyes locking on.  It’s not hard to believe that she’s capable of murder, and the fact is that she readily admits to the crimes she’s been convicted of.  This isn’t a whodunit.  The state clearly found their woman.  No, the question that hangs over this entire film is whether Aileen’s fits were a preexisting madness, if the events were triggered by some slight that threw her into a murderous rage.  While that scenario still leaves her culpable, looking into the eyes of someone who is clearly not in control of her actions as government officials lead her away to die is traumatizing and will certainly make you take a good, hard look at an issue that deserves serious thought.

Other Notes:

Ø  Some of the cast of characters that Broomfield interviews are quite rough around the edges, which he occasionally plays for comedy.  I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that.

Ø  Disregarding Aileen’s mental state, the question of whether she was educated enough to really understand her case is disturbing in its own right.

Ø  At the end of Aileen’s final interview, I can’t help but feel that Broomfield was speaking for us all.