FILM FACTORY SUMMER CAMP 2019

MINDHUNTER: A TRIP THROUGH SURREALITY

Reyumeh Ejue

What is art? This is a question that has beguiled philosophers through the ages, with a myriad of definitions offered and debated. Into this pool I throw in my hat. Art for me is humanity’s attempt to grapple with itself. It is humanity trying to understand the factors that shape our consciousness and the world around us.

    Following this theory, Mindhunter, season 1, is a prime specimen of television art. The show, which is based on the birth of forensic psycho analysis, the means by which law enforcement are able to investigate crimes and make arrests, through the science of criminal profiling, is an addictive shot of storytelling. 

    Set in America in the 1980s, it follows two FBI agents, Holden Ford and Bill Tench, as they crisscross the American continent, building up a profile and scientific study of known incarcerated serial killers. 

    Holden, the younger of both agents is a type A individual, with an eerie sheen in his eyes that doesn’t go away for asecond. Watching him feels like been trapped in an office with an over caffeinated co-worker, who doesn’t pay any heed to your complaints or bulk at the work load entrusted to both of you.Basically, he doesn’t come across as the sort of guy you’d want to be friends with. Bill on the other hand is a salt-of-the-earth character, a homely fella, with a wife and son and a nice house in the suburbs. He is level headed, and is the one usually tasked with reining in Holden’s excesses.

    Together they are tasked with interviewing known serial killers such as Son of Sam, Edmund “Co-ed Killer” Kemper, Jerry Brudos, Richard Speck, Charles Manson and others. Their job is to explore the psychopathic mind, to find out how it functions and ticks, to know what drives a human to get up one day and begin killing fellow beings. 

    As they learn about psychopathic tendencies, we the audience learn alongside them, discovering tasty nuggets like the fact that a psychopath’s pulse slows down at the sight of blood, instead of quickening like the rest of us. That psychopaths experience absolutely no emotion, not even anger, and have to learn how to fake emotional reactions in childhood. That a psychopath doesn’t have to be a killer, in fact most successful CEOs are psychopaths who have been able to direct their energies into something productive, and whose complete lack of conscience makes it easy for them to establish dynasties and conglomerates while destroying livelihoods and the environment. You learn this and more over the season’s 10 episodes.

    The dynamics between Holden and Bill makes for very dramatic viewing. Holden is the more compulsive of the two, ready to break the rules, take risks and downright act in ways that makes you suspect he might have a bit of the psychopath in him. But it’s his actions that deliver results, and when he gets out of line, Bill is there to straighten him out.

    At the same time, Bill is dealing with issues at home. His young son begins acting up and becoming distant from him and his wife. As their back story is gradually filled out, we come to realize that things aren’t exactly what they seem in this perfect household.

    Our agents are called on from time to time to help in ongoing homicide investigations. We see them put into practice the theories they’ve been working on with psychology professor, Wendy Carr. There is also a recurring theme throughout the show, of the metamorphosis of one man into the notorious BTK killer, who killed ten people in the State of Kansa. We watch him develop an unconventional sexual fetish, and his struggles to hide it from his wife.

    All in all, Mindhunter is a trip, a very trippy one at that. The kind of show that challenges your notions of human consciousness, and forces you to question what you know about people. Following my definition of art, that is what brings it close to becoming what is called a chef-d’oeuvre.