LONDON: Even before pandemic-enforced binge watching became a thing, audiences have devoured true crime stories that shine a light on the harrowing side of human nature. Director Joe Berlinger knows a thing or about the draw of contemporary true crime (his resume includes “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” and “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills” among others) so the American filmmaker seems a natural choice for Netflix’s new “Crime Scene” documentary series. The first season focuses on the infamous Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, and examines how this seemingly run-of-the-mill building has become a nexus for criminal activity.
Berlinger does this by examining one of the most shocking cases in the hotel’s recent past — the 2013 disappearance of Canadian student Elisa Lam, and the subsequent media and online maelstrom that resulted from video footage of Lam behaving strangely in the hotel’s elevator before she vanished. It’s a smart decision, as the Lam case gives the series a single narrative thread to pull at, but also offers multiple opportunities to divert into tangential examinations of the Cecil Hotel’s place in the wider story of Downtown LA — and specifically the impoverished Skid Row area.
In places, “Crime Scene” is a gruesomely macabre recounting of a harrowing case that sparked an explosion of conspiracy theories that persist to this day. In others, it’s a cautionary tale about the power of so-called web sleuths who exist outside of the traditional confines of investigative organizations — the story of a musician caught up in some of the online theories is particularly troubling. Berlinger speaks to key figures involved in the case — the detectives assigned to find out what happened to Lam, staff at the hotel, and various online detectives who spent countless hours poring over the details — and weaves a fascinating story that flies by in four episodes. At times, the story of the hotel itself reveals almost as many shocking and surprising details as Lam’s case throws up. And that is probably the point — this series is about the places, as well as the people, that wind up in the center of terrible tragedies. It makes for a heady mix.
