Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003)

the audience applauded

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Blistering performances.

Looking at the life of Aileen through this documentary, you can easily tell Aileen has been through a lot to get to how crazy she is. According to her adopted mom, Aileen was homeless at a young age of 13. She would sleep alone in the forest, even in the blistering winter. Desperate and willing, Aileen became a hitchhiking prostitute traveling the country everyday. From 1989-1990 seven men were murdered by the hands of Aileen Wuornos. When Aileen was brought into custody, she confessed to the murders, but claimed they were in self defense. Her fair trail lasted 12 years, coming to an end in 2002 when she was executed by Florida Officials. It was quite sad to see Aileen early in the trials persuading juror's and judges by crying and lying under oath about how she was raped and tortured severely. Then later down the trial towards her end days there is footage of her admitting she was lying the entire time and that she was in the prostitute business to rob men and kill them. Aileen in her end days compared to her in the beginning of the trial is two different people. She became very paranoid and went mad, she was executed October 9th, 2002, at the age of 46.

English writer, producer, film editor and documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield's 15th documentary feature and second documentary about American serial killer Aileen Wuornos (1956-2002) who was executed by lethal injection in Florida, USA after having been on death row for twelve years. It premiered at the 2nd Tribeca Film Festival in 2003, was screened in the Real to Reel section at the 28th Toronto International Film Festival in 2003 and is a UK-USA co-production which was co-directed by documentary filmmaker, cinematographer and producer Joan Churchill and produced by producer Jo Human. It tells the story about Aileen Carol Wuornos, an American-born woman who was brought up in the city of Rochester in the state of Michigan after her birth in 1956. Aileen's parents Leo Pittman and Diane Wuornos who came from Finland to America as immigrants were divorced before she was born and she never met her father who after spending many years in prison for having raped a 7-year-old girl, hanged himself. In 1960 when Aileen was about to turn 4-years-old, her mother abandoned her and her one-year older brother Keith leaving them with their grandparents Lauri and Britta who that same year legally adopted their two grandchildren. Already as a teenager and after having been sexually abused by her grandfather and having a consensual sexual relationship with her brother, Aileen began supporting herself through prostitution. She became pregnant in 1970 after supposedly having been raped, but after the birth of her son she had to put him up for adoption. Shortly after her childbirth she dropped out of school, and as a 15-year-old girl she started living in the woods after having been kicked out of her grandparents' house by her grandfather. Aileen spent many years hitchhiking and living in Southeast America as a vagrant, a prostitute and a criminal, and while staying in the city of Daytona Beach, Volusia County, Florida in 1986 as a 30-year-old woman, she met a 24-year-old hotel maid named Tyria Moore at a gay bar. Aileen and Tyria became a couple, but all though this good thing might have improved her outlook on life and provided her with a sense of prospect, this little spark of love might also have instigated her road to damnation and her yearning desire to avenge the men who during her adolescent years had taken away so much of her dignity, deprived her of her innocence and made her life a living and endless nightmare. This biographical early 21st century documentary which is narrated by British filmmaker Nick Broomfield and which had its theatrical release approximately seven months after 46-year-old Aileen Wuornos' death penalty had been carried out in the State of Florida in October 2002, is an illuminating true story which in an investigative manner examines the life and upcoming death of a lawless woman who suffered an almost unimaginably horrifying childhood and who throughout her life was deceived by the ones that were closest to her. All though confessing to having murdered seven men in late 1989 and early 1990 after being arrested in 1991, Aileen Wuornos (1956-2002) claimed that many of them had raped her and that she was acting in self-defence. While taking a clear stand on the practice of capital punishment and more specifically the execution of people who are mentally insane, this unsentimental depiction of a death row inmate's deteriorating mental state which is notable for Nick Broomfield's presence in front of the camera, his rare voice-over narration, his commendable interviews and conversations with Aileen Wuornos, the timely use of music and the atmospheric score by composer Rob Lane, gives a neglected, exploited and tortured person who was pushed over the edge and who eventually retaliated, a voice. Aileen Wuornos was both a victim and an executioner and all though this documentary is lesser concerned with the families of the victims, in scrutinizing the gruesome crimes and tries to establish whether or not she was acting in self-defence, it does not in any way attempt to exonerate the perpetrator or paint an incandescent picture of her. Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill's understanding portrayal of a person with an explosive and violent temper who in a state of madness and faced with the ultimate judgment seemed to be so powerless and out of touch with reality that she had lost the strength to plead for her life, essentially makes one see the possible reasons for why and how a Christian woman who hated men and placed her blame on the media, the police and society, became a murderer. This heartrending and disenchanting documentary feature is a look straight into the eyes of death which leaves a remarkably strong impression and which underlines how the name and stories of an unorthodox serial killer is used as a product.

She was a "Frank Breech Birth" according to her mother, Diane, who claimed that Aileen, might have been brain damaged during birth even though it was her impression that she was mentally competent. The last few scenes are chilling and makes one think twice about competency hearing and death penalty. She was seen by three shrinks for 20 minutes each few days before the execution and declared competent. Broomfield's introspective statement one of the best one liners-"How badly you have to perform to be declared incompetent?" She disowned and despised her mother. The mother's action probably triggered her rage and the abuse by men made her deranged and impulsive. She did not accept the mothers plea thru the interviewer, to forgive her, even though she had no contact with her mother for over 25 years. She claimed that the family was decent but were too strict, She was thrown out of the house after at 13, to live in snow in a truck with the four wheels resting on cinder blocks. Her last wishes for her to be cremated and ashes to be scattered over estate in Michigan, and the last song to be played at the wake "Carnival" by Natalie Merchant, is sad and poignant. The best piece of the film, is when Nick Broomfield gives an interview to the media, on day of the execution and the camera is focused on the media for their reaction and one female news reporter(a stunningly attractive woman) makes incredible professional facial gestures, to hide her tears from the camera. If she (Wuornos) was a "Monster" that she was made up to be, why shed tears? This only confirms that her execution was more political than based on principle. She certainly was a tortured soul on earth.

The part that really blew MY mind was the serial killer's friend, Dawn Bodkins, INSISTING that gay people did not exist until recently.WTF? THAT woman clearly ingested too many drugs in her youth - what a stupid thing to say!.Wrounos' mother, Diane - this woman abandoned her kids and she's acting as if she knew nothing about the hell her daughter went through (sleeping in the woods in the Michigan winter, etc.) I guess it never occurred to her that she might have had something to do with the way Aileen turned out!Wrounos belonged in an insane asylum, not executed. And this comes from a lifelong proponent of capital punishment. Something was clearly mentally wrong with that woman! The last interview proved it.Scary - but you can't look away