Bazaar Bizarre

I thought the way this film was presented was very good, although I could do without "The Demon Dogs" playing songs as the film progressed. A documentary such as this has no business interjecting a rock band playing songs because it has nothing to do with the story. The film contains archival footage of Berdella's victims as well as actors portraying the people involved in the case. I would love to see a documentary on serial killer DEAN CORLL presented in this way, with actors portraying Corll doing what he did to the victims. The Dean Corll case is one of the spookiest, most disturbing case of serial murder that has ever happened and to date, nobody has ever devoted much time to the case. At any rate, I was very pleased with "Bazaar Bizarre" and would recommend the movie to any serial killer buffs out there. You won't be sorry.

Bazaar Bizarre is an attack on the subject matter of serial killing unlike any other. Defying all logical genre definition it plays out like a aural, visual, and physical meditation on the mental capacity that is required to enact crimes such as serial rape and murder. Society is quick to judge such acts. We are fast to condemn. There are times in Bazaar Bizarre that do this as well, but just as often it seems to ask us to slip into the mind of the killer, to see something that we may not want to. Is it poking fun with these sensory assaults, or unsettling the viewer even more with this skewed view of the world? I cannot say. There are no answers in this film, just questions.

The strange case of serial killer Bob Berdella began for authorities when a man was found running naked in the streets of Kansas City. Unable to talk, ass cheeks bloody, and wearing a dog collar and leash, this man spun a terrible tale. This was to begin unraveling a story that was as wondrously weird and hideous as they come. For days, the man had been being kept a prisoner in the home of a local man. Over these days he was repeatedly raped, tortured, and photographed. Drain cleaner had been injected into his vocal chords, and he was unable to speak clearly, but for slight as his voice may have become, his tale was as strong as any could be. He led officials to the house, and the peeling of the many layers of the life of Bob Berdella commenced.

Bob Berdella was the owner of a local shop that carried curios and oddball nick-knacks from all over the world. In Kansas City, if you wanted to purchase a shrunken head, Bob Berdella was the man to see. His shop was "Bob's Bizarre Bazaar". Need bone jewelry? Or maybe ask him to try some of his home made chili that he shared with other shop owners. Well maybe not...

Director Ben Meade also hails from in Kansas City, and there's something intimate about his look into the mind of this killer. Understandable, as Meade himself had come face to face with the killer at least once at his shop. Maybe it is this backyard proximity that allows Meade to pounce with such unflinching zeal on the topic. Aided with commentary and narration by James Ellroy, author of L.A. Confidential, both men constantly creep into and out of the mind of Berdella...Meade lulls the viewer into a feast for the eyes with stunningly awkward visuals, documentary montages with Berdella himself, and musical interludes that fixate upon the events and give the viewer a moment to collect his or her thoughts. Ellroy crashes in, here and there, with a gut punch of verbal realism. He is the sound voice of reason in the chaos. He speaks a true grit truth. He has no love, compassion, or empathy for Berdella. He lets this be known, unmistakably.

Meade has concocted a strange brew of a film. He has interviews with the aforementioned surviving victim, one with Berdella, and with people who were involved with the case and its media coverage. Meade mixes all of this in a fashion that is not locked into any format. Unlike other forays into serial killer docudramas, there is not a chronological time line. Instead, Meade allows the mind of the viewer to connect the dots themselves. A higher form of reward is earned in this manner, as people are asked to involve themselves and potentially become immersed within the framework of the film.

There are scenes in Bazaar Bizarre that are gruesome. Some of the exploits of Bob Berdella were not the type to be readily accepted by Mr. And Mrs. Middle America. The recreations tickle the edges of exploitation with a grainy realism. A well used attempt to blur the boundaries between the stock archival footage and staged magic of film. This forces the viewer to accept a more intimate arrangement with a very twisted mind. The exploits of Bob Berdella are not narrated over black and white stills. It is much more closer to us than that.

Bazaar Bizarre will not suit the taste of every one. It is a hybrid of experience and knowledge. We are taken to places and then given pause. The pace is one that allows for introspection, but at the same time if the viewer does not have a lot to bring to the intellectual table, they may find that this dance is a bit one sided. Berdella's story is not shown as a parable of humanity. There is no attempt to make him anything other than what he was.

Movies on serial killers are sometimes so over dramatized that it leaves viewers like me disappointed. They loosely base movies on actual killers using well known actors and then blow the facts out of proportion, changing them or even leaving facts out entirely; raising these killers to an almost "hero cult" status, just to get the dramatic effect they are looking for. This takes away the reality of what they actually did. I found Ben Meade's "Bazaar Bizarre" to be a very innovative, to the point, even funny film about the sick and twisted life of Robert Berdella. The way it was presented, with a combination of James Ellroy's narration, documentary and dramatization style snaps you into the reality that serial killers DO exist. Many lives are lost every year to these kinds of sick cold-blooded killers. This is definitely a must see film for the true crime buff. I loved it!

Not too shabby for a documentary distributed by Troma, but it would have been MUCH better without the annoying inserts of a blues band singing songs about Bob Berdella and his deeds. This documentary is both about him and WITH him. He's pretty unrepentant, and feels personally that it shouldn't have taken the 5-0 so damn long to find him - he did, after all have naked hippies wearing dog-collars stumbling naked out of his place, messed-up on Drain-o. He was just feeding people human flesh a la his chili at his flea-market stand and selling human-bone jewelry to school-kids. Ya know, the day-to-day routine.

With his display of human-skulls for basketball-fans ("the final four...") was considered a bit over-the-top by more conservative members of the area, but all-in-all he was just a FABULOUS serial-killer, trying to live life the only way he knew how.

I attended a screening of Bazaar Bizarre last night at the Glenwood Arts Theatre. Filmmaker Benjamin Meade was there to introduce the short film, which runs 86 minutes. As a Kansas Citian who used to buy stuff at Berdella's shop (much to my disgust), I'd been looking forward to seeing the movie for quite a long time.

It's OK. But that's about as far as I'd take it.

The good: Ellroy is always a stitch. His unapologetic lack of sympathy for Berdella is entertaining and even enlightening as he discusses the general MO and predilections of serial killers.

Most of the re-enactments are fine and pretty well filmed and acted -- a rarity for this type of movie. The gore is also pretty impressively convincing, largely because the footage has been artificially aged and damaged. I was surprised that the production values easily outshine some much higher-budget films, such as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Now, whether the re-enactments amount to anything more than voyeurism is up to you. The chili-cooking scene in particular doesn't really do much for me, either as comedy or as documentary. It's one of the most highly speculative (and I think improbable) parts of Berdella lore.

The most valuable passages of the movie are undoubtedly the interviews with Berdella himself, as well as with the cops, prosecutors and Kansas City Star and Times reporters involved in uncovering the man's horrific misdeeds. Berdella was an absolute jerk as well as a murderer, and his repugnant personality comes through loud and clear. An interview with the only known surviving victim seems promising, but it really doesn't allow much insight. The man, now grown, stays in the shadows and describes his experiences with the detachment of a longtime drug addict who's undergone so many tortures that none of them stands out any longer.

The bad: The movie is really a mess from a structural standpoint. Meade jumps around his time line, which makes absolutely no difference. But he's strung his bits together with some truly embarrassing music videos by an absolutely execrable "rock" band singing vacuous, trite songs about Berdella. I'm sorry, but Meade obviously has absolutely no feeling for contemporary culture if he could center his film so fundamentally on this band's work.

Another clue and Meade isn't quite as up on what's au currant: Before the screening, he pretentiously declared that his movie would have trouble being exhibited -- probably receiving an NC-17 -- because it features male frontal nudity.

Uh, Mr. Meade, do you not GO to movies? Did you see Sideways? Did you see Kinsey? The mainstream comedies EuroTrip or Super Troopers? Scary Movie, a blockbuster hit released in every city in America, where a man is shown being stabbed in the head BY AN ERECT PENIS? For crying out loud, did you see Porky's 20 years ago? Meade's statement is ridiculously ignorant and provincial.

The nudity in Bazaar Bizarre is not sexual. It's a guy in his 20s with a flabby gut, jumping off a roof and running across the street. The totality of the footage is perhaps ten seconds, almost all framed from fairly far away. It doesn't even amount to controversial.

The problem is NOT with male frontal nudity from an obscenity standpoint. I can name you 20 Hollywood movies with a penis for every one that actually shows female pubic hair, not to mention female genitalia.

In fact, I don't think I can remember a single major American film that's shown actual female genitals. Basic Instinct? Watch it again. The Center of the World? Requiem for a Dream? Gus Van Sant's Psyhco? Again, re-watch them. No, you're not seeing what you think you're seeing. This is the sort of sloppy claims of persecution that make artists look like whiny babies.

Anyhow, Bazaar Bizarre is what it is. Worth a Netflix rental when it comes out. I don't think I'd drive to see it in theaters.