“Once upon a Christmas time…”, says a male voice from the off, the documentation about Ghislaine Maxwell begins like a fairy tale, accompanied by piano music and pictures of a British country house decorated for Christmas. A girl, five years old, decorates the tree, “Ghislaine”, the narrator introduces. Actually, one is prepared, after all, evil is part of every fairy tale, and the documentary “Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?” by Erica Gornall already indicates in the title who is the bad guy here, or rather: the bad guy. But that “the bad one” was once a child, that’s something you always forget. Until you see it.
And what little Ghislaine will commit later in her life. She will grow up and become Jeffrey Epstein’s significant other between England, yachts and New York. She will lead a life of high society while Epstein organizes for years young, sometimes underage, women whom the multi-millionaire inflicts sexualized violence on. She will weave a web of dependencies and false intimacy from which victims will find it difficult to break free. Her husband will be exposed and a little later will be dead in his cell. She will be exposed, will deny the allegations in court and will be sentenced to 20 years in prison in July 2022 for trafficking in minors. So this life is ahead of little Ghislaine this Christmas Eve.
Not just true crime horror, but genuine interest in Maxwell’s personality
“Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?” is not the first docu-series to take a close look at Epstein and Maxwell’s monstrous woman procurement scheme. “Jeffrey Epstein – Filthy Rich” can be seen on Netflix, several “survivors”, as she calls the documentary, tell what the multimillionaire did to them. And what role Maxwell played in it, which – one has to say it so drastically – secured the supply of girls. Anyone who has seen this series comes out with the question: Who is this Ghislaine Maxwell?
There have also been attempts to answer this question through film documentation; for example the documentary series “Ghislaine Maxwell – Epstein’s shocking accomplice” which can be streamed on RTL+. But because Gornall is in Who Is Ghislaine Maxwell? doesn’t just want to give in to the temptations of true crime voyeurism, but is actually interested in Ghislaine Maxwell as a person, you actually do learn something new. For example, about her difficult relationship with her father, a patriarch and media mogul, who could hardly turn down a wish from Ghislaine, but probably didn’t know anything like unconditional love for his children. How much Maxwell was affected by his death, how important a “central” man was to her in her life when she met Epstein.
Sometimes flattering, sometimes dominant – which is just better manipulated
Filmmaker Gornall got (former) friends, acquaintances, rivals and companions to tell stories in front of the camera for the documentary. For example, Nicola Glucksmann, an “acquaintance” who tells of a dinner party that Maxwell had invited. At some point, after the meal had been carried away, Maxwell announced it was time for a “game”: the men blindfolded, the women bared their breasts. Men should recognize women by their breasts based on shape and weight. “Ghislaine was very relaxed about it, it was supposed to be a gift she gave us,” Glucksmann recalls. “You have to remember that a woman is proposing this game, it makes it very difficult for the other women not to play.” A kind of “peer pressure for adults” had arisen.
Maxwell organized parties while she was still a student at Oxford and was a personality at the events of the studying, British moneyed nobility, fellow students say. Thanks to the fortune of her father Robert Maxwell, who, among other things, DailyMirror Although the Maxwells belonged to the upper few thousand, as “newly rich” they had to fight for the social recognition of the British aristocracy. Ghislaine, as the interviewees describe, showed herself to be a string puller, who was sometimes flattering, sometimes dominant towards her fellow human beings. Depending on what would be more promising to manipulate.
Anecdotes are lined up one after the other and one begins to suspect what makes Ghislaine Maxwell tick, how great her ability to seduce was. And how she was able to keep the Epstein system running.
Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?Monday, July 25, 10:15 p.m., in the ARD and from then on for 90 days in the ARD media library.