DiscoViolento OK, so the title might be a big statement. I haven't seen all documentaries ever made and I bet a lot of people will disagree with me. Note, I never said this was the BEST documentary. But in its simplicity, there is something incredibly interesting and also quite groundbreaking. And here is why:Sam Vaknin is a self-declared expert on Narcissistic personality disorder and is perhaps most famous for the book "Malignant self-love" which he wrote together with his wife Lydia. Successful businessman turned eco-criminal, Sam is now a doctor of psychology who suffers from all 10 traits of Narcissistic Personality disorder as well as psychopathic traits. Another man who had all 10 traits was Brian Blackwell, who beat both of his parents to death just to cover up the lies he'd told his girlfriend. In other words, if all this is true, Sam is a very dangerous man.Ian Walker follows Sam as he undergoes tests that will confirm whether he is indeed a psychopath or not. As the film goes on we get to follow both Sam and the tests he takes as well as Ian himself, describing his relationship with his subject. Ian also interviews Lydia, Sam's wife. As the testing process becomes more in-depth, the story of their journey becomes more complex and in the end they paint a very insightful portrait of what being a psychopath really means.Though it might be a quite scary revelation, this movie asks some very interesting questions:Can a psychopath ever be self aware?If so, can that person control their behavior?And if we can teach a psychopath to control their behavior before they do something dangerous, what would that mean for society?And for those who say that this is just one person basking in his own glory - that's exactly what it is. And that's why it is so interesting.

rai_y_day I've followed Sam's writings for years. Interesting to see him 'live'.I've had such people in my life & frequently experienced situations like one the Film maker described. Where he had no idea what mood Sam would be & how Sam'll fly in a rage with no obvious external 'provocation'. Some of the bad footage was done on a secret camera to counter Sam's careful manipulative stunts & how he was trying to keep control the whole process. I've seen these subtle stunts for well over a decade with such horrors in my life.I found it interesting to see what was NOT said - some of his background was not confirmed - was his mother verbally abusive or was it just a sympathy ploy? What did his family have to say about it? It was painful watching when the Film maker caught some of the subtle belittling attacks - words with the cutting percussion of a surgical blade. (but leads you open to amateur efforts ) The Film maker was only exposed to this bloke for a few weeks & he was scared, he'll never forget this experience..

sacbutt I would expect that "I, Psychopath" will take it's rightful place in the annals of scarumentary (crockumentary?) next to " Reefer Madness" sometime in the coming decade or so. OK, slightly (ever so) less lurid than the latter. (The score of '5' reflects it's entertainment value only)But Please. A director incapable of setting limits on his subject? Who is this "documentary" about? "For months afterwards, bits of Sam's taunts come back to haunt me"? What actually WAS the point of this 30 minutes-that-I-shall-never-retrieve? (Yes, I DID miss the first 30 minutes, thankfully) But really, is this a "beware, they're out there"?Or a "they live and they wonder about their life" (If so, we-e-e-ll, has Big Brother not already done this to death?? AND been taken off the airwaves?!)kinda effort?Or is this a self serving rehash of a-a-all those times that the mean boys were, well, mean, dressed up as a sycophantic attempt to capture a sound byte and be able to essentialise and dismiss as 'pathology' a complex interaction between the aberrant self (cos Vaknin = not a your most stable of tables) as 'self being viewed' by 'self assuming a nonjudgemental-but-nonetheless-emotionally-involved- stance' And what fresh hell is this?? Espousing the diagnostic test "PCL whatnot" as a definitive measure of Is He a Psychopath? Gaaaah! Strewth, what next, Phrenology as the Next Big Thing? Ech. Tiresome stuff. Pass me the librium, slap that whinging director, tell that silly man Vaknin "No, not allowed", his wife maybe to get some help with her self esteem issues and shame on you, ABC, for screening this programme without a "park your credulity here" disclaimer.

Mark Knoffer I've just seen this great peace of film on "arte".It was a very impressive documentary about a man (Sam Vaknin) who claims to be a psychopath and manipulates the people around him. the filmmaker Ian Walker accompanies Sam and his wife Lidija in journey through Europe, visiting psychologist and Neuroscientist to test Sam's psychopathy.The interesting point of the film is not proceeding on the assumption that psychopaths are criminal, mass-murderers or even (physically) dangerous nor that they can be recognize at first sight.In contrast to most other psychopaths, Sam wants to find out about his character/substance and why he is ready to hurt him and others to achieve his goals.i am very sorry for Ian Walker. he sacrifices himself to his film, science and the truth, while being attacked by Sam the whole time. i have hardly seen filmmakers committing mayhem to themselves like this. (: