Aileen Life and Death of a Serial Killer

Broomfield first encountered Aileen Wuornos in the early '90s, when he focused on her inadequate defense team and the extent to which the media furore around 'the first female serial killer' afforded cops and lawyers their own chance to make a killing (Aileen Wuornos The Selling of a Serial Killer). His second film came about when he was ordered to testify at her final appeal in Florida before execution. He's a friendly witness, but Wuornos didn't want sympathy. All she wanted was to die. The film - one of Broomfield's best - traces her rotten childhood in Troy, Michigan, which ended young with her living rough in the wilderness on the edge of her home town, already prostituting herself for food and favours; elaborates a case for self-defense at least on the first murder charge; and provides a shattering, heartrending insight into the virtue, rage and madness of this much abused killer.