Screens August 9

The latest film from British documentarian Nick Broomfield is relatively restrained compared to some of his earlier outings. Gone are the paranoid conspiracy theories of Kurt & Courtney (1998) and Biggie and Tupac (2002), and in their place is a deceptively casual look at a decades-long killing spree in South Central Los Angeles. Tales of the Grim Sleeper is as much about the people who knew Lonnie David Franklin Jr, the mechanic charged with 10 murders (Broomfield suggests there may be many more) as it is about the killer himself. The interview subjects are remarkably candid, painting a vivid picture of their own struggles, their retrospectively strange dealings with Franklin, and the LAPD’s bungled investigation of the case. The film suggests that the careless police work in the case is down to the fact the killer exclusively murdered black women in the sex trade, often selecting crack addicts as his victims. Paradoxically, Broomfield’s outsider status as a white British man gives him intimate access to people and information. Though the film loses steam in its last half hour as it circles back on earlier narrative threads with diminishing returns, Broomfield still paints a remarkably clear picture of shared guilt, suggesting that if police had investigated Franklin more thoroughly, the lives of many women might have been saved.