Shocking portrait of a murderer Summary
A shocking series that, however, does not resort to truculence and focuses on the characters, with a formidable Evan Peters as the serial killer obsessed and marked by abandonment and isolation, fully aware of his uncontrollable compulsions and who strikes fear as perhaps not seen since Kevin Spacey in Seven. The finished psychological painting of him results in a humanization that does not lead to empathy, but rather gives more thickness to his monstrous dimension. On the other hand, the series is not afraid to tackle from the beginning the political and social dimension of the case, even to the point of underlining, with a negligent police officer who deliberately and systematically dismissed or minimized complaints about a white man whose victims were African-Americans, brown-haired and Asian homosexuals. , ensuring their impunity for years.
Review:
The series follows the biography and crimes committed by serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.
The series co-produced and co-written by Ryan Murphy is an accumulation of successes, both in the narrative and technical aspects as well as in the psychological description of Dahmer and his positioning in front of the murderer and his circumstances.
Far from the deliberately overflowing and overloaded style of his other productions such as American Horror Story or Ratched, Murphy understands that such a tremendous story can only be taken seriously and soberly, as he had already done in the remarkable The Assassination of Gianni Versace.
Facing a murderer with necrophilic and anthropophagic elements (he was nicknamed the Milwaukee Cannibal), the first success of the series consists of avoiding the truculence by resorting to successful ellipses and off-screen shots and focusing on the psychological and bonding aspects of the protagonist. This does not prevent (and perhaps reinforces) that Dahmer's encounters with his victims transmit at times an unbearable tension, as he had not seen in stories of this type for a long time. The series manages to shock and horrify, sometimes painting absolutely macabre scenes.
Dahmer describes in detail and builds with the patience of a goldsmith a biography where the protagonist's relationship with his family is a fundamental element, even in his adult life: his mother, his father (a great performance by Richard Jenkins), his grandmother and his stepmother are masterfully painted. Elements of everyday life, some "normal" and others not so much, reading comics, situations and signs that in other people would not bring consequences and neglected warnings will have in this case disturbing resonances and consequences like germs of a murderer under construction.
The positioning of the series regarding the vulnerability of his victims is fundamental, making clear the decisive political dimension of the framework of impunity with which he acted. It is clear that Dahmer (and this is not a spoiler) was able to continue murdering in Milwaukee for years thanks to negligent police who deliberately and systematically dismissed complaints about a white man whose victims were black, brown and Asian homosexuals, complaints coming from those same communities, a corporate police that made little or no effort to investigate. The choice of these victims ensured the murderer, then, impunity for a long time. This dynamic is not only clear from the story, but it is expressed several times with words by some characters so that there are no doubts. Because of all this, certain objections made to the series by relatives of the victims caught my attention. It was even questioned that Netflix put the lgtbq label on the series...
Nor is it off the radar of the authors that the story of a murderer does not end with his imprisonment, following the tribulations of the bereaved, the fascination of American society with serial killers and reflecting on the value of the memory of the victims.
In a formidable performance, Evan Peters personifies Dahmer from his adolescence to his arrest and imprisonment, an individual obsessed and marked by abandonment and solitary confinement and fully aware of his irrepressible compulsions. His composition is quite successful at times lethargic, surprised and resigned of a condemned individual with no way out but who premeditatedly exploited the vulnerability of his victims. The finished psychological painting of him results in a humanization that does not lead to empathy, but rather gives more thickness to his monstrous dimension, far from the sensationalism of a fictional Hannibal Lecter, for example. Peters produces a chilling fear as a viewer has not lived since the memorable Kevin Spacey of Seven; he is a predatory assassin with some points of contact with that of The Serpent, but without the glamor of him.
Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy's script is excellent, as he seamlessly organizes and integrates everything, as the dimensions of history. The staging is sober, with an excellent recreation of the period (but without gloating), perfectly integrated into the cadence of the murderer, with a timeline that comes and goes in time and reproduces some situations by changing the point of view. There are long, breathing scenes that honor and provide the right setting and timing for their remarkable dialogue. It is no coincidence that some chapters with an almost dreamlike atmosphere at times are directed by Jennifer Lynch, David's daughter, where the locations, certain sectors of the houses, the lighting and the off-screen with the sound off also become disturbing. And palpable protagonists.
Perhaps it could be reproached that certain conclusions drawn by the viewer sooner rather than later are later underlined by the dialogues of some characters, so that there are no doubts about the intentions and positions of the characters and the filmmakers.