'This is a story that's far from over...' director Nick Broomfield on his HBO serial killer doc, TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER 

When I was given the task of reviewing this week’s Double Exposure documentary duo for Rialto Channel I was pretty stoked. The topic of both is essentially “True Crime”, but what was so amazing is that both films go beyond that genre into something that is so much more. But back to me! I admit I am an absolute freak for true crime stories both in print and on screen, and have been since I was a teenager. There is something so terrifying and yet so fascinating – for me, anyway – about real life horror, so much more so than the latest incarnation of SAW. That is how I approached the first film, tonight’s TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER, which explores the suspected crimes and subsequent arrest of one Lonnie Franklin Jr., a community figurehead in South Central LA by day and a brutal killer by night.

'This is a story that's far from over...' director Nick Broomfield on his HBO serial killer doc, TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER 

When I was given the task of reviewing this week’s Double Exposure documentary duo for Rialto Channel I was pretty stoked. The topic of both is essentially “True Crime”, but what was so amazing is that both films go beyond that genre into something that is so much more. But back to me! I admit I am an absolute freak for true crime stories both in print and on screen, and have been since I was a teenager. There is something so terrifying and yet so fascinating – for me, anyway – about real life horror, so much more so than the latest incarnation of SAW. That is how I approached the first film, tonight’s TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER, which explores the suspected crimes and subsequent arrest of one Lonnie Franklin Jr., a community figurehead in South Central LA by day and a brutal killer by night.

He currently stands on trial for killing countless black prostitutes between the mid '80s and his long overdue capture in 2010, a jaw-dropping 25 years after the killings began. His victims are rumoured to be in the hundreds, poor, black women on the fringes of society that it appears no one cared about enough to report missing.

The documentary is the fine work of non-fiction provocateur Nick Broomfield (KURT & COURTNEY, HEIDI FLEISS: HOLLYWOOD MADAM, BIGGIE AND TUPAC), the perfect choice IMHO for the story of a serial killer who ran unchecked for 20 years. When Franklin Jr. was arrested in 2010 as the suspected murderer of a string of young black women, police hailed it as the culmination of 20 years of investigations. Four years later, Broomfield visited the alleged killer’s neighbourhood to find out if the police had earned their self-given kudos and claim that they had 300 cops on the case. There, he finds a world of people who suspected for decades that there might be some connection between their neighbor and the dozens of women who had gone missing from the street - but didn’t trust the LAPD to help their own community.

After the residents are initially reluctant to talk to him, Broomfield asks for the help of Pam, a charismatic, sassy former prostitute who is beyond eager to help get to the bottom of these murders. She is a true force to be reckoned with, and slowly Franklin's friends and neighbours open up about just how much of the spree was common knowledge, and how little interest the reportedly ‘dedicated’ police force seemed to take. The documentary most importantly gives voice to the victims, and conveys an injustice that extends well beyond just this case. 

Quite brilliantly, what begins as a grisly multiple murder case becomes a statement on racial and social prejudice. The film isn’t really about Franklin’s guilt or innocence or any gratuitous crime scene footage in the end, but instead the community of South Central Los Angeles where the killings took place. And where for more than 20 years, the local police lacked the sense of urgency – or basic care - to stop it. Not a single person from the LAPD would speak to Broomfield for the film, which speaks volumes really. The film ends up becoming a sad portrait of yet another poor, African-American community left to fend for itself.

The second in the Double Exposure duo for this week isTHE GALAPAGOS AFFAIR, which has been dubbed “Sex, Murder and Mystery in The Enchanted Islands” and “Darwin meets Hitchcock” by various critics. It’s the story of Friedrich Ritter (voiced by Thomas Kretschmann) and Dore Strauch (Cate Blanchett doing the honours), who were sickened by German society and sailed off across the world in the early 1930’s. The aim was to land in the Galapagos, eventually working their way to Floreana Island. They set up home in the Galapagos, and life began to look rosier by the day.

What Ritter and Strauch didn't count on was being eventually discovered by the international press, who rapidly trumpeted their exploits as “The Adam and Eve of the Galapagos” and set the world aflame with the possibilities that may entail. Others soon started flocking to Floreana, each seeking to realise his or her own personal ambitions: Heinz Wittmer, his pregnant wife and teenage son who left Cologne in 1931 determined to become “The Swiss Family Robinsons of the Galapagos”; and shortly thereafter, the Austrian Baroness Eloise von Wagner Bosquet who, declaring herself the “Empress of Floreana,” arrived toting a pearl-handled revolver, a harem of young men and a grandiose set of plans for opening a luxury hotel catering to billionaire yachtsmen. Fabulous? Yes, problematic? Most definitely.

The end result a real-life Darwinian story of survival of the fittest, a story both macabre and profound that is completely compelling.