Nonfiction filmmaker Nick Broomfield and his frequent collaborator Joan Churchill return to the subject of an earlier film, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, for Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. Twelve years after the first film was made, Wuornos was still in contact with Broomfield from her cell on death row, and he was called as a witness in her final death penalty appeal before the state. Clips of the earlier film were used by defense lawyers to help make the case that
Wuornos' lawyer during sentencing, Steven Glaser, was incompetent. Footage used in court shows Glaser smoking pot on his way to the prison to confer with his client. Broomfield uses the opportunity to interview Wuornos several more times and to examine the horrific details of her childhood, interviewing her acquaintances and surviving members of her family. While making the new film, Broomfield learns that Wuornos, increasingly unstable and paranoid, is unwilling to continue to fight for her life. Desperate to escape death row, she has abandoned her convincing claim that she committed murder in self-defense, and she now wants to be executed as soon as possible. In Jeb Bush's Florida, it's clear, this isn't difficult to accomplish. Broomfield talks to the mentally deteriorated Wuornos one last time before her execution. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer had its New York premiere at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
Além de investigar com maior profundidade as origens da violência de Aileen, o documentário ainda comprova a perfeição da performance de Charlize Theron em Monster.
Not even Charlize Theron's lauded portrayal of the accused can compete with the captivating genuine article, whose calculated professions of remorse barely conceal her festering rage at a lifetime of mistreatment.
Though unpleasant to watch, Life and Death of a Serial Killer presents a portrait of evil, betrayal and banality that's almost impossible to take your eyes off of.
While I prefer more even-handed approaches to documentary film, there’s no denying the power of the footage, particularly that featuring [Aileen] Wuornos.
Subpoenaed as a witness at a late appeal by Aileen Wuornos against her death sentence, filmmaker Nick Broomfield received a heaven-sent opportunity to improve upon his disappointing documentary The Selling of a Serial Killer. Having watched both films in close succession, the most disturbing thing about Life and
Death... is Wuornos' very evident mental deterioration in the intervening years. When Broomfield first met Aileen she was angry and defiant, slightly delusional perhaps, but perfectly lucid; here, after a decade on death row, she is still angry and defiant but there are times when she can barely follow a thought to its conclusion or string a coherent sentence together. She resembles one of those caged animals that has been held in captivity too long, going round in circles, dreaming up ever more paranoid fantasies of police corruption and her own persecution. Even if you manage to convince yourself that the act of executing a person who is mentally ill is not in itself unconstitutionally cruel, dangling the hangman's noose in front of a sane person for so long that she becomes, by her own admission, "so fucking mad I can't see straight" surely is. Very depressing but utterly riveting.
As someone with a psychological interest in killers, I found this documentary most facsinating, anyone who enjoyed the film Monster and would like to see the real Aileen would find this interesting
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