I can distinctly remember sitting with my brother- playing with some action figures in the mid 1990s, when I first heard about MKULTRA.
This of course was not by name; but the concept of evil government agencies brainwashing their citizens, experimenting on them in macabre ways, was weaved into the intricate storylines we made up while playing with a basket full of GI Joe, He-Man, and Dick Tracy figurines.
My brother is 6 years older than me, so his knowledge, which he would lay on me in bursts, always seemed to blow my mind. Likely spooled by episodes of 'The X-Files' and dusty encyclopedias in the basement, he loved to collect obscure knowledge.
"You know this is what happened to people?" He said as he hung a character off the side off the coffee table. "They tested everyone to see if they would talk, or if they could resist...they definitely killed people." -he wasn't wrong...
One of these people was Mr. Frank Olson. The subject of a new Netflix documentary by legendary documentary filmmaker Errol Morris.
The documentary investigates Olson's death. Originally labeled a suicide- death by jumping out of a hotel window. We learn however, that this was not likely the case as Olson was troubled by the CIA's actions, and wanting to leave his post. The CIA of the time, much like the mafia, was fiercely protective of its secrets, and would not have wanted a consciously-driven individual leaving their ranks with loads of classified information.
Morris tackles the dark murky waters of the 1950's CIA and MKULTRA experiments by anchoring us to the character of Olson; played by actor Peter Saragaard in beautifully shot narrative film sequences which depict his struggles with leaving the CIA, and being honest with his family. The scenes are brilliantly simple, but shot with the poetic intensity of a Terrance Malick film. To call them reenactments is to really diminish how well they are done. I would have easily watched an entire narrative film shot about Olson.
The remainder of the film is made up of archival footage, and in depth interviews with Frank Olson's son Eric. Eric has spent much of his adult life traveling down the rabbit hole further. Trying to piece together fragments and retractions from the CIA becomes a Herculean task and an obsession.
The connection of a son investigating the death of his father, and the narrative of Hamlet is not lost on Eric, nor Morris, and a haunting narrative forms around the ripples of Olson's unjust end.
If you are unfamiliar with the "dark days" of the CIA, and its mind control experiments, then this is crucial viewing. If dosing unsuspecting victims with LSD and/or "suiciding" a troublesome person seem like the fodder for pulp fiction, or children's action figure storylines, then you must educate yourself on the sinister forces behind our intelligence agencies both past and present.
Wormwood is a masterclass in documentary filmmaking. The visual storytelling and weaving of an intergenerational struggle is compelling viewing.