Fusillade de Columbine: Dans la tête des tueurs

The Columbine Massacre: In the Killer's Mind (2007)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This French documentary from filmmaker Stéphanie Kaim was obviously made on a low-budget but it's extremely well-made and as the title says it tries to get into the minds of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Through video footage shot by the killers to home movies and security footage, this documentary gives you a pretty gruesome idea of what happened that day and the events leading up to it.

Unlike most American documentaries on the subject, it should be noted that this here is pretty graphic as there are uncensored photos of the massacre shown so those wanting to avoid seeing real carnage should probably stay away from this or at least be prepared to cover your eyes. I think the documentary did a very good job at covering all sides of the story including early on talking about how Klebold and Harris were abused and picked on by most people in the school. We even get video footage of the two being hit by a few jocks.

From here we learn about their growing rage and through readings of their diaries we hear their hatred grow deeper and deeper. There's also footage from home movies that the two made where they fantasize about their killings and we also get interviews with a few people who knew them as well as people who were in the school that day when the massacre started.

The documentary lasts under a hour but there's a lot of great, sad and rather shocking information here including some issues that locals had with the police and how long it took them to respond to what was going on. There's also plenty of footage that really gives you a terrific idea of what was going on with these guys that made them snap. To say what they wrote was chilling would be an understatement. The film isn't very easy to watch and it's quite disturbing but if you're interested in the story then there's a lot of stuff here.

Truly I gave up at about 2 minutes in. The first outright lie is the claim of using machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. While yes a singular sawed-off shot gun was use, there were not multiples. There were zero machine guns used. At about a minute and twenty seconds in, they claim Columbine was "at the time, the worst school massacre in the history of the United States." It is a well known fact the worst school massacre happened in Bath Township, Michigan in 1927. Truly not worth continuing into this "documentary" which is already a fiction.

I don't know if maybe this was made for a high school project or what, but even if that were the case it is a complete failure. Horrible narration, horrible editing, and whoever put this together obviously didn't do much, if any, research. If you want to watch a documentary on the Columbine massacre, look elsewhere. This one is a complete waste of time and there are many other documentaries on the subject that are miles better.

To read other reviews. I was wondering if it was driving me as crazy as other people to hear the horrible narration. It sounded like a computer voice that could not speak English properly. It was a french film, I get that, but if you were going to hire someone to narrate it in English, get someone who can correct the vocabulary and grammar. Sound was horrendous. Not much substance even at only 5 minutes in.

As others have noted, it looked like a poor attempt at a high school project where the kids forgot that it was due tomorrow. "Oh crap, you type the script and I'll look up all the pictures I can of the massacre! We will just do like a movie version of Powerpoint!" Nevermind, there is no way the producers and such gave it that much thought.

Provided insight into incident, and profile into perpetrators. Interesting interviews, facts, photos, video etc.