There's something invisibly off-putting about ITV's 3-episode series Des right from the get-go, which in hindsight is a stroke of genius because it is also how the viewer is made to feel about its titular character throughout the ordeal: he does absolutely nothing to antagonize you yet he chills you to the bloody bone.
The short show centers on a British serial killer, Dennis Nilsen but please call me Des, who was arrested in 1983 when the term serial killer had yet to enter social consciousness, and the murders he perpetrated -up to 15 according to himself- had yet to be linked in any way let alone to one specific perpetrator. In fact most of his victims had to that point been marked as runaways or simple disappearances, in no small part due to the fact that "Des" took the time to carefully dismember his victims (in some case with what a coroner describes a surgical precision), then cremate or simply bury the remains in his own backyard.
The series begins with his quick and quite calm arrest; officers are investigating human remains found nearby, he invites them in, they notice the smell and barely need to ask for him to point where the latest victim is stored. And then things only go forward, revisiting the past in conversation only but never in flashbacks. Everybody likes the man it seems, as confirmed by his co-workers who refuse to believe the allegations, and he himself keeps complimenting his own good nature. While willfully discussing how he carefully washed his victims before removing theirs heads to be boiled on his stove top.
 |
| Who else is thinking "Bill Gates bio" right now? |
As the central protagonist, one-time Doctor Who David Tennant reminds once again he is one of the most immersive and skilled actors working today, giving not even hope of glimpse to any of previous, maybe more light-hearted roles. Even Good Omens' wicked demon Crowley never snakes his way into our minds while we watch the drowsy-eyed killer discuss the semantics of chronicling his life with his chosen biographer, because why not when you consider yourself "the killer of the century". Said writer is refreshingly played by an equally formidable thespian, Jason Watkins who criminally never gets named alongside his co-star as amongst the greatest of their generation. Why HE was never cast as the Doctor is an injustice worthy of its own true-crime series.
Rounding the cast is the always affable Daniel Mays, whom here goes against type in playing the audience proxy, a DCI that cannot decide what baffles him the most: the magnitude of Des' murders, the fact he did it incognito for so long, or the fact he happily confessed only to plead not guilty once the trial starts. "Those victims deserve the truth" Nilsen argues, in a gesture that does nothing but stretch his moment in the sun. Because THAT is the driving force of the entire narrative: Des is a "nice guy", but never got the attention and care he truly deserved, the same kind he gave to the corpse of his victims, and all the event portrayed were engineered by him so that he finally gets recognized. If only he had waited 25 year, he could have laid it all out online and be treated as a God by hordes of true-crime devouring viewers of Keeping up With the Komfy Killer.
That off-putting feeling we get stranded with from the opening minutes to the very last, is that despite declaring our disgust at such a character, we still watch with great intent as well as an attention span we can't even offer our own entourage. So engrossed are we his this story that we forget to care how we never learned anything really about his victims nor do we meet them aside from the one who survived his encounter (revived by Des himself, after having failed to drown the poor lad, because that's how good a guy he is...). That off-putting feeling is the realization that we care more about a truly vile human being than the lives he was allowed to end for so long without being noticed.
If that irony passes you by with glee, you will enjoy Des, for it is a masterfully crafted series.
No comments:
Post a Comment