This disk contains both of Nick Broomfield's documentaries on Aileen Wuornos. The first film, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, his reviewed here.

In 1992, English documentary film-maker Nick Broomfield was asked to direct a series of films about serial killers, something he had little real interest in doing. When looking through the supplied material he found one case that commanded his attention, mainly because it appeared to have turned the serial killer cliché on its head – instead of a male killer murdering female prostitutes, here was a female prostitute killing male clients. Broomfield contacted the woman's lawyer and was told that for $25,000 an interview could be arranged. For Broomfield, this was the kicking off point for a film not so much about Aileen Wuornos, the woman in question, but the exploitation of her story by almost everyone involved in the case. Broomfield's eventual interview with Wuornos did more than give his film it's needed climactic footage, it marked the start of a relationship between him and Wuornos that – kept alive over the years through correspondence – bordered on friendship.

Broomfield had no plans to make this follow-up film, and was in the middle of shooting his documentary Biggie and Tupac when one morning he was served with a subpoena to appear at Wuornos's pre-execution trial. Suspecting he was going to be asked for his opinion as someone who knew Wuornos, he was surprised when he was questioned on the editing techniques used in his earlier film in an attempt to discredit the evidence it presented. As Broomfield watched this new aspect of the story unfold he witnessed something else, a change in Wuornos that went beyond the physical – after twelve years of protesting that she was acting in self defence, she was now saying that there were no attempts to assault her and that all of the killings were robbery motivated. On top of that, she was objecting to her own defence witnesses, effectively sabotaging her trail. As Broomfield had all the equipment at hand for the Biggie and Tupac shoot, he took it and long-time collaborator Joan Churchill with him and began work on what was to prove the concluding half of this extraordinary story.

If the first film was primarily concerned with the exploitation of Wuornos's story, then Life and Death of a Serial Killer is more focused on Wuornos herself, and just what really constitutes the truth regarding what provoked her to kill her victims. The only one in a position to supply this information is, of course, Wuornos, and in her first meeting with Broomfield, whom she greets with a warmly and enthusiastically delivered "Hi, Nick!" she seems to have a single intention: to go on record and admit that she actually killed all the men in cold blood, something she has chosen to do in order that she can die having set everything right with God. But Broomfield suspects from the start that something just ain't right. Twelve years on Death Row in a room without sunlight have left Wuornos looking old beyond her years and have dramatically cranked up her paranoia – and as the film progresses she expounds, sometimes manically, on her conviction that she was being watched by the police even before she committed the first crime, and that they let her continue in order to trade on the more lucrative Serial Killer label, and is convinced that they have been for years bombarding her with sonic waves. Initially quite lucid, her mood can change in an instant, her face contorting into a mask of ferocious rage, then returning to its normal, sometimes openly friendly self.

Broomfield becomes increasingly convinced that Wuornos has actually changed her plea because she just wants an end to the whole process of Death Row living, if it can be called that, and the seemingly never-ending stream of pointless court appearances. Wuornos, he surmises, wants to die, and she herself does little to discourage this belief. The moral problem, as far as Broomfield is concerned, is that Aileen has actually lost her mind and should clearly not be executed, and he becomes determined to discover just what really is going on here. The Christian Right (an oxymoron if ever there was one) inevitably viewed Wuornos's change of heart as a final admission of guilt by an evil woman, and the process of getting her killed is kicked off with some speed by non other that Jeb Bush (Dubya's brother), who is up for re-election on a law-and-order and execution ticket, which Wuornos's death would be perfectly timed to publicise.

The ghost of the first film begins to rear its head – politicians are still using the Wuornos case to promote their own personal and professional agendas, and the facts of the case remain uncertain. This is reflected in Broomfield and Churchill's extensive use of extracts from the first film for background information, which is considerably expanded on here. Seen side-by-side with that film on this DVD release this may seem a little like space filling, but ten years separated these films and as made-for-TV works there would be no guarantees that the audience for this second film would have even seen the earlier work or have access to it for recall purposes.

Broomfield's personal journey once again invites audience identification and involvement. More information is given on Aileen's early background, and we get to meet her closest friend Dawn, who shows us some of Aileen's extraordinary artwork (which can only be properly seen when held up to the light) and claims forcefully that "gays weren't invented" until about 15 years ago – when she asks Broomfield if there were gays when he was at school, he replies that he went to an British public school and adds that "that's where it was invented – us and the Greeks." We also meet childhood friends Michelle, who takes us on a censored tour of the neighbourhood of their youth and talks in court about the brutality of Aileen's grandfather, and Dennis, who as a child used to live in the woods with Aileen after she was thrown out of her home. We learn of her early pregnancy, her marriage to the elderly Lewis Fell, which ended when she assaulted him with his own walking stick, and (albeit fleetingly) of the local pedophile who was rumoured to be the father of Aileen's child. Broomfield also tracks down Aileen's natural mother, a sad and frail woman who requests that Broomfield ask her daughter for her forgiveness, something the still bitter Wuornos angrily dismisses with a furious "She can go to hell!" We also see Broomfield re-introduce himself to Steve Glazer, whose career as a lawyer was apparently brought to an end when the first film was shown. Glazer shakes Broomfield's hand with a disbelieving half-smile on his face and says to him wearily, "Fuck you. Fuck you and your documentary. Don't talk to me."

Though more fact-filled than the first film, it is again Broomfield's personal journey that proves the most compelling aspect, and especially his encounters with Aileen, who always greets him affectionately by his first name, and after one particularly difficult but revealing encounter, tells Broomfield as she leaves: "I'll always remember you and love you. I love you so much." It is during this interview that Wuornos lets slip what may be the truth behind her plea change. They are between takes and while Churchill is out of view reloading the camera, Aileen talks to Broomfield in a hushed whisper and confirms his suspicions about what is going on. Unbeknown to her, Churchill has changed tapes and is filming the still visible Broomfield and recording the whole thing.

This leads to a genuinely extraordinary final interview with Wuornos, recorded the night before her execution. She is kept shackled and some distance from Broomfield, who just can not forget that he is first and foremost a documentary film-maker, and despite their friendship, Aileen's increasingly angry protestations that he drop the subject and the fact that this is the last time he will see her alive, he continues to press her for confirmation of her earlier whisperings. Inevitably Aileen loses it completely, but in the middle of her seemingly rambling anger repeats a proclamation from her first trail about society condemning a raped woman to death, and in that moment kicks against her more recent claims that it was not in self defence after all. As she is being led away in a state of fury, Broomfield calls across to her, almost pleadingly, "Aileen! I'm sorry!" It's a testament to our involvement in with both of them that this is an almost heartbreaking moment.

By then it is hard to know where we stand on Aileen's story, as the twelve years on Death Row in virtual isolation have clearly driven her mad, something we can clearly see, but which three psychiatrists appointed by good old Jeb Bush took just fifteen minutes to refute, allowing this conveniently timed execution to go ahead. Though the end is inevitable, Broomfield uses the media circus that has gathered to report on the execution to give interviews to reporters and put across his view that the state has willingly executed a woman who has lost her mind.

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer is a sad indictment of a system that seems to deal with injustice through a process riddled with its own injustices. Aileen Wuornos was tried, endlessly re-tried and eventually executed, and nothing seems to really have been learned from the case, and instead of trying to understand this woman and her crimes, many of those in authority and connected to her personally have seeked merely to profit from it. You are left with the sense that Aileen's final paranoid ramblings about police and political corruption, though absurd in their scale and illogical in their detail, may still have an essence of truth.