Dahmer

David Jacobson’s Dahmer (2002) starring Jeremy Renner as Jeffrey Dahmer is one of those slightly odd movies that leave you feeling not entirally sure what you’re supposed to be feeling…

The real life Dahmer was arrested in 1991 and convicted of the murders of 17 young men. His criminal record also included earlier crimes of sexual abuse, public drunkenesss, mastrubating in public and so on. He eventually graduated to murder, cannibalism and necrophilia and that’s where you start realising how wrong this film could have gone. It could have been a slasher/horror/blood-and-gore standard. But no.

And that’s why it works.

The story is told in a slightly disjointed way, showing the animal as a younger brute as well as the fully fledged killer who invites a presumptive second victim back to his apartment while he still has his previous victim in the bedroom. Using the same actor for both the younger and older Dahmer means the director has made the choice to show differences in time through composition and colour saturation, plus a general lack of scruffiness in the aperance of the actor in the earlier sequences. This actually works surprisingly well. The static camerashots when showing Dahmer’s youth also create an atmosphere of alienation that works well.

You get the sense that everything carries meaning, and like any good story of alienation everything carries equal menaing. Killing, driving around or having a cup of coffee is treated with equal attention to detail. It creates an overall feeling of unpleasantness. You constantly wait for the other shoe to drop. Renner gives a great performance of an affable guy who hides a brutal killer behind a slow, boyish smile. He has captured the predatory gaze with alarming accuracy.

If you are looking for gore, however, this is not the movie for you. There is some violence, but it is generally treated with due decorum and the more graphic details of Dahmer’s practises, like cannibalism, are left out. Neither do we get any psych 101 answers as to why Dahmer is the way he is, which is a good thing. Presented with his behaviour and some of his own rhetoric on topics of morality the viewer is left to draw his/her own conclusions. The simple answer is that there is no simple answer.

On the other hand you could argue that this way of handling the topic is a bit coy. Everything becomes surface, and it is easier to distance yourself from the action when it is treated with this much decorum. I knew the story beforehand, including some of its viler aspects, and even when knowing what comes next you still don’t have to invest in it – it is easy to take a clinical view of events. I would say it is not nearly as disturbing as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) which has a completely different aesthetic. But it does linger…

Mule