grim sleeper
On occasion this spring, HBO has turned in its movie loop and original programming for high-quality documentaries — and the result has been an unprecedented amount of doc talk in the mainstream media. By showing thought-provoking pieces of nonfiction such as Going Clear, Citizenfour and The Jinx, HBO has steered the national conversation to places that simply can’t be achieve by Game of Thrones or Veep.
The latest installment in this series is Tales of the Grim Sleeper, a true crime film that premiered Monday on HBO. It’s a story that will leave you with fear in the pit of your stomach. To put it in the most simplistic way: This movie is scary.
Filmmaker Nick Broomfield leads the viewer into the underbelly of Los Angeles to tell the tale of a series of murders committed between 1985 and 2007 and Lonnie Franklin, the accused perpetrator. This premise is chilling enough in the obvious serial killer way. The disturbing, often sexual details of the murders in question — 10 at the very least — make them less edge-of-your-seat intriguing (like true crime mega-hits Serial or The Jinx) and more stomach-churning concerning.
But Tales grows more than one type of fear in its viewer. It is not only a film about a series of murders but also one about a community. That Franklin allegedly could take part in the murder or disappearance of more than 100 black women in this South Central neighborhood (many of them crack-addicts or prostitutes) and get away with it for so long is scary. In many cases, when the bodies of some of the more unlucky women were found, it didn’t even make it into the local news.
“Imagine if they would have treated victim No. 3 as if she was a student over at UCLA with blonde hair and blue eyes,” attorney Nana Gyamfi, a member of the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, said at one point in the film. “How many people would still be living? The lack of concern allowed for this hunting ground to be free and open for this person.”
The film also comments on the anti-snitch mentality that pervades a neighborhood like Franklin’s and the relationship of non-trust between the community and the police. The idea that people don’t trust the police enough to stop a serial killer is scary.
“You cannot just, as a black person, walk into an LAPD station or LASD station and say, ‘I have something to report,’” Gyamfi said. “It is a 99 percent chance that this is going to be an unpleasant situation for you.”
A lot of the quality of this film comes from interviews like this one, as Broomfield himself does not contribute much. As a filmmaker, he puts himself into the situation too often, using his naivete (he is a British filmmaker in South Central) to make sure he gets the facts straight and displayed clearly. While this does make for more detailed answers, some of Broomfield’s casual tactics make for poor filmmaking. In the interviews, the camera movement straddles the line between natural and sloppy. Luckily, the subjects are vibrant, honest and real. Their words and emotion make camerawork secondary.
No other voice of the neighborhood is as strong or entertaining as that of Pam Brooks, a former crack-addicted prostitute who knew Franklin and volunteers to help Broomfield. Together they drive around South Central, asking prostitutes on the corner and homeless people in alleyways if they remember when the man they called the “Grim Sleeper” was arrested in 2010. Their journey as unlikely partners in research makes for some riveting film, at once deeply saddening and somewhat uplifting at the same time.
Their search finds many of the women thought to be missing, hidden out in the cracks and crevices of a broken neighborhood. Their interviews are chilling, sad and at times hard to hear but at least they’re being done. The documentary said the police only officially had one witness to Franklin’s misdeeds but here these women are, in front of camera telling their stories. In this sense, Tales of the Grim Sleeper, like so many true-crime docs, is about the faults of the justice system and how concerning that is. But, at its heart, this is a documentary about the streets of despair and not the halls of justice.
With Franklin still going through trials, Broomfield has no access to him. The story is told like most things are in a community: by word of mouth. We get no sense of what is the truth and what is exaggeration, and the film ultimately offers few answers outside of the fact that Franklin is a man with evil in his heart. But it doesn’t seem to matter, as Tales of The Grim Sleeper is a film that is about people and what they have to say. It’s unnervingly raw and scary in more ways than one.
