Mr Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr
★★★★
(1999)
Errol Morris' seventh and perhaps least known documentary work is a difficult tale. The opening sequence of Fred Leuchter sitting amongst machinery in a cage, lit by flashes of electricity may seem a tad too Dr Frankenstein and way too over the top, especially when you meet the mousey cowardly man at its centre. But this story of an electric chair specialist who dedicated his life to humanely killing the convicted of America turns into a story of horror and absurdity at the drop of a hat, more than warranting the dramatic introduction.
Obviously not a popular man with the ladies, a quiet, almost creepy introvert, the interest in Leuchter's frame of mind is suddenly boosted by Morris wonderful interview technique and his sublime film making into a story which grows stranger and stranger at every turn. When Leuchter was hired and financed in 1988 by holocaust denier Ernst Zundel to travel to Auschwitz to sample the rooms used as gas chambers during the second world war he inadvertently helped disprove their existence. This was also his honeymoon.
He inexplicably became a star on the Neo-Nazi circuit, doing little to hide his doubts about the atrocious findings. Watching his joy at being applauded by a group of holocaust deniers certainly focuses in on just how lonely, afraid and desperate for friendship Leuchter was. His science (or lack of it) made him a star in the eyes of some of the most hated groups in the modern world but Morris somehow finds a way to make you worry and even care for him in the first half of Mr Death before leaving the man, his accountability and his profession behind.
As heavy film as it is, it's not without its humor. Leuchters intake of cigarettes and coffee is mind-blowing and his descriptions of death at the hands of incompetent prison wardens and faulty machinery are swimming in a strange dark unsettling humor. His interview shows pride in a profession which is little seen and much rather left in the dark places of ones mind but, in the end, that duty to an unwarranted humanity cannot save this silly, desperate and fascinating little man.
