Review of Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999) by J Kenneth W — 28 Sep 2008

In his review of Mr. Death, Roger Ebert states that the viewer will "often leave [Morris'] documentaries not sure if he liked his subjects or was ridiculing them. He doesn't make it easy for us with simple moral labels.".

Indeed, that is one of the most interesting things about Mr. Death -- the story of a small, geeky sort of guy who gains notoreity first by helping to make more humane types of execution equipment, then by being tied to Holocuast denial. And yet somehow it's the people villainizing him who seem to have gone off the deep end.

I have seen three of Errol Morris' documentaries now and loved every one. As usual, Mr. Death is a stunningly beautiful film with brilliantly symbolic imagery and narration. The first half of Leuchter's story has the viewer coming to like him as he tells of how he got into the business of creating ways of killing people that don't result in torture. Nevermind the moral implications of aiding in the murder of human beings, Leuchter is able to look at it as being an engineering job and nothing more. He doesn't look at it as killing people; he looks at it as reducing suffering. He's a strange and quirky fella, and his inexplicable success is a wonderfully engaging story.

The second half of the movie involves Leuchter's involvement with a Canadian trial of a man who claimed that the Holocaust did not happen. Leuchter travels to Poland to collect samples from the "alleged gas chambers" in order to test them for cyanide. The movie drags a little bit here, showing a lot of footage of Leuchter chipping away at concrete in dark, damp holes in the ground. Leuchter comes to the conclusion that there is no way the spaces could have been used for gas chambers.

Of course, cyanide wouldn't get too deep into the brick and after 50 years there would be little trace left anyway, but Leuchter is convinced. Here, his views and rise in the revisionist history circuit are contrasted with traditional Holocaust believers, almost all of whom paint Leuchter as anti-Semitic, bigoted, or just plain stupid.

It definitely throws you for a loop when you realize that you're sympathizing with a Holocaust denier. Of course, that's the idea -- to turn on their heads the ideas that you hold steadfast. Morris is not asking you to seriously entertain the idea that the Holocaust did not happen, or else he would not have needed to include the scene of a lab technician disputing Leuchter's findings. Instead, the idea is that someone who it is easy to demonize could just be a regular guy. Leuchter himself says that the inmates who are on death row are just like the guards, except that they don't get to go home at the end of the day.

Mr. Death is an entertaining and thought-provoking documentary. Oh, and let me not forget to mention that it's eerie at times, as well. There are moments in the movie where a Polaroid or the sight of a pile of bricks becomes chilling.

An excellent, moving documentary.