Doc series
ROBERTO SUCCO (EN)
The charm of evilTrue crime
4 episodes 50 minutes
2 episodes 90 minutes
Logline
A manhunt that winds its way through Italy, France and Switzerland to stop the murderous rampage of a psychopathic killer.
Robert Succo the serial killer with the icy stare.
SYNOPSIS
Roberto Succo, The Charm of Evil is a true crime series about the most incredible and daring manhunt in Europe in the mid-1980s. The hunt for a ruthless killer, Roberto Succo.
At the age of 19, he kills his parents by hitting them with a kitchen knife. It is only the beginning of a long streak of bloodshed: Succo kills men and women, with his bare hands or a gunshot to the head, he rapes and kidnaps. He is an unpredictable assassin who acts on impulse, with no apparent logic, a modus operandi that makes very difficult to predict his next move. He is an elusive shadow who held the police forces of France, Switzerland and Italy at bay for years, from Venice to Annecy, from the criminal asylum of Reggio Emilia to the mean streets of the Toulon suburbs, from Berne to the Venice prison.
He is a handsome boy, Roberto Succo, who is liked by women. He wins them over with his blue eyes and gentle ways, but behind his looks lurks a psychopath utterly devoid of empathy. As in a thriller by James Ellroy, the series takes the viewer into the mysteries of the investigation, to the places of the crimes, to the interrogation rooms, but also and above all into the meanders of the mind of one of the youngest serial killers in European history, to spy that thin line that separates the man from the killer. Through the real voice of the protagonists, detectives, psychiatrists, investigators, witnesses, the public will relive the grueling manhunt, full of twists and turns, conducted by the police to stop the unpredictable madness of the killer. A frantic race against time to prevent another victim from being added to the killer’s tally of blood.
WHY TELL TODAY THE STORY OF A SERIAL KILLER FROM THE 80s?
Roberto Succo’s story is not only a gripping thriller full of twists and turns, worthy of the best crime novels out there, but above all it is a journey into the mind of a young and elusive serial killer.
While on the one hand the unpredictability of Succo makes the narrative extremely compelling due to the difficulty for the police to see the hidden design behind dozens of individual attacks which only in the end become the pieces of a more complex puzzle with a single culprit, from the other the journey in his mind brings up contemporary issues and opens reflections on human nature, the desperate need to be loved, the inability to handle rejection and the loss of a moral boundary.
The relationship that Succo has with his mother and with women in general is extremely current and, 40 years later, allows us to make a profound reflection on the reasons for a conflict that today more than ever is a social emergency. Gender-based violence.
One of the aspects that has been talked about very little in Italian true crime stories is the fascination that murderers exercise in particular on the female audience. The project will therefore try to investigate this phenomenon known as “hybristophilia”, which involves falling in love with a man who has perpetrated violent crimes, through interviews with women who at the time got in touch with Succo, who wrote to him, they sought him, they somehow loved him.
The story of Roberto Succo has never really been told with the force of the cinema of the real. There are books and plays, a fictional film produced in France in the 2000s and even a graphic novel, but an organic and complete documentary work has never been done.
In France, the failure to extradite Succo and therefore the fact that the trial took place in Italy is still an open wound. The French authorities, despite the years that have passed, still deeply feel that justice has not been done.
The daring story of Roberto Succo, despite his 40 years, is today more than ever of great relevance.
ROBERTO SUCCO AND THE WOMEN
In 1981 when Roberto Succo kills his parents he is only 19 years old, he is apparently a boy like many others, intelligent and calm. He attends the last year of high school with excellent results, he is taciturn and solitary, but it doesn’t matter. Roberto is a son to set as an example, to be proud of.
And that’s exactly how it is for his mother, Marisa, the first victim, whom Succo savagely attacks with a kitchen knife. Marisa is firmly convinced that her son is destined to excel, handsome and intelligent, with something extra. However, it is only about what appears on the outside, within the home it is a whole other story. The relationship with Marisa is difficult and conflictual, the criticisms fierce and punctual. The young Succo is torn between the desire to indulge his mother in interpreting the perfect son and the drive for independence and emancipation typical of his age. It is precisely in the desperate search for the approval of the mother that the distorted idea that Succo has of women is formed, he is attracted and repelled in equal measure. Like the young Carole in Toulon to whom he whispers that he loves her only twenty-four hours after the first meeting or the Swiss primary school teacher Francoise who, one minute after being kidnapped by him, finds a chaste kiss placed on her cheek.
Both survived the encounter with the killer’s violence, other women weren’t so lucky and paid with their lives, with rape, perhaps a rude gesture, perhaps a badly said word, no one will ever really understand what was going on in the mind of that young man so desperately looking for love.
A desperate and intense need for love that does not leave indifferent the many women who, both during the French years and after his arrest, wrote, telephoned at the police station, at newspaper offices, in prison, to ask for contact with the beautiful and damned killer. But what makes women so sensitive to his charms?
The story of Succo deeply affected the public opinion of his time. During his years on the run, his face filled the front pages of newspapers and TV in half of Europe. In France he was Andrè les fou, in Italy the killer with ice eyes.
Anyone in that period, looking up from the newspaper, had the impression of seeing him among the people, in the faces, in the movements of the young persons who crowded the streets, because Succo was an ordinary boy, a boy from a good family, a boy who every mother would want for her daughter. In his past there were no abuses, no violence, there was no degradation or marginalization. So how was it possible that the “monster” was unleashed?
Roberto Succo’s story perfectly embodies that subtle attraction to the allure of evil.
Since then, books and plays have been written about the story of Roberto Succo, and a feature film directed by Cédric Kahn was presented at Cannes in 2001. Even today, Roberto Succo’s tomb is covered with dozens of messages, letters, objects left by men and women who write to express admiration, esteem, even love. The story of Roberto Succo is the perfect expression of our fascination with evil.
NARRATIVE STRUCTURE
The series, divided into four 45 episodes or two 90 minutes episodes, is a journey through the complex labyrinth of the investigation to catch Roberto Succo. Through the interviews with the real characters, which constitute the main narrative framework, the audience will discover the investigative work, the collection of evidence, the interpretation of the clues, but will also be able to experience the fears and doubts that the protagonists had to face in order to finally identify the killer and succeed in capturing him.
The episodes are not structured to follow the story in chronological order, but the narrative moves back and forth in time in a game of flashbacks to enhance the investigative twists and turns. The story opens in France in 1987 when no one knows who Roberto Succo is yet and the investigators find themselves dealing with a fierce, fast-moving and elusive killer.
Then a turning point and the story jumps back to 1981 when Succo, just nineteen years old, kills his parents, the terrible scene of the crime, the investigations, the first arrest and the sentence to the asylum. Then a leap forward, the escape from the criminal asylum and back to France, this time to Toulon, other victims, and to Bern in Switzerland, before returning to Italy where the incredible epilogue takes place, in an incredible ride through three countries and 9 different cities.
Mistakes, disorganisation, but also brilliant investigative intuition and imagination keep each episode on a razor’s edge, in a precarious balance between the tenacious and determined investigators and the killer who always seems one step ahead of everyone. At the end of each episode, in the best thriller tradition, a cliffhanger makes it impossible not to continue following the fight to catch Roberto Succo.
SCENE SETTING
The series is built on different visual levels, each designed to amplify the suspense and enhance the staging, keeping the viewer in suspense. The interviews with the main characters form the narrative framework and will be shot using different cameras and in a way that gives rhythm and pathos with frequent shifts of point of view to investigate the emotions of the protagonists in depth.
Archive material, investigators’ files, transcripts of interrogations, photos of the crime scenes, psychiatric reports, mug shots, newspaper and news images from the period play a central role and, to evoke the flavour of the places in the 1980s, films from private archives in super 8, in 16 mm, in Hi8, in VHS.
The third narrative level is constructed by a kind of evocative re-enactments. The original locations of the story are conjured with a very careful and fascinating photographic technique typical of fictional cinema, slow descriptive camera movements of the environments where details are inserted that symbolically recall the event that happened in that particular place, an echo, the water that flows from an open tap as in the Duchosal crime, a blood stain that stains the asphalt near Castillo’s car, the bullet casings scattered on the floor of the Hotel Premar.
The evocative power of the images is amplified by the use of sound editing, two shots breaking the silence, a fragment of dialogue in the interrogation room of the Venice prison.
The scenes are not just re-enactments but tell of something more as if the terrible events that occurred there had left behind some psychic traces.
EPISODES AND SYNOPSIS
Part 1 – Shots fired
1/4
AIx-les-Bains Savoia (France) – Annecy (France)
AIx-les-Bains Savoie (France) – Annecy (France)
The killer kills the first victim, a police officer. The police have few leads, only the testimony of a mysterious man seen near the crime scene. In the meantime the killer strikes again while the police grope in the dark. Then a lead, the first one. A witness has heard the killer speak. He has a foreign accent.
EPISODES AND SYNOPSIS
Part 2 – Andrè les fou!
2/4
Toulon (France)
The deaths, the assaults, the rapes don’t stop. The police are looking for the murderer in the Annecy area, but he has moved further south, to Toulon. Here the first real mistake. A stupid fight in the street. A man injured. Several witnesses. The killer’s name is André. The police are convinced they have the killer in hand, raid the Hotel Premar, but it ends badly. One officer dead and one seriously wounded. The killer escapes. Then the turning point. A 17-year-old girl has met the killer, they had an affair months before.
EPISODES AND SYNOPSIS
Part 3 – The girl on the train
3/4
Venice (Italy) – Reggio Emilia (Italy) – Bern (Switzerland)
1981 Venice. A 19-year-old boy kills his parents, is chased and arrested. The judge sentences him to the criminal asylum. The boy’s name is Roberto Succo, he has escaped from the asylum and he is the killer spreading terror in France. Now the killer has a name and a face, but he has already left France. Now he is in Italy and on the train he meets a girl.
EPISODES AND SYNOPSIS
Part 4 – The only woman ever loved
4/4
Conegliano Veneto (Italy) – Treviso (Italy) – Livorno (Italy)
Newspapers and TV stations publish his photo all the time. The Italian police are convinced that Succo is in the area around Venice, they put everyone who knows him under surveillance. Then a report: Succo is seeing a girl, Francesca, and the trap is set. Roberto Succo is arrested, but it’s not over yet.
Newsflash: “An escape attempt from Treviso prison”. Succo is escaping…
