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In his terrifying new BBC adaptation of the crimes of Conman and serial killer Charles Sobhraj, director Tom Shankland discusses the challenges of bringing viewers back to the 1970s hippie trail in Southeast Asia
Given our insatiable appetite for real crime, it's surprising that the story of Charles Sobhraj isn't already mythologized in pop culture alongside the likes of Charles Manson and Ted Bundy. Better known as the Snake – a nod to his reputation for evading capture – Sobhraj first gained notoriety in the mid-1970s for drugging, robbing, and murdering a number of young Western travelers en route to Southeast Asia found.
Produced in association with Netflix, the BBC's new eight-part series focusing on the crimes of the snake was also lauded for its disturbing portrayal of Sobhraj and his lover / accomplice Marie-Andrée Leclerc (played by Tahar Rahim and Jenna Coleman, respectively) . , than his broader comment on how the 1960s hippie dream went sour.
Charles Sobhraj and Marie-Andrée Leclerc (played by Tahar Rahim and Jenna Coleman)
The seed for the idea of the series was laid over two decades ago when director Tom Shankland was touring Asia. "I was in a Himalayan village in Nepal, about 19 years old when I first heard about Charles Sobhraj," he says. “Some of us were huddled in the dark telling travel stories, buzzing after a day of trekking through the world's most beautiful mountains, and getting lyrical about the amazing people and places you see on the road when someone said, & # 39; You can't trust everyone you meet. She continued talking about a man – possibly French – and his girlfriend. "
While Shankland assumed at the time that it was little more than a hippie story, the story popped back into his head a few years ago as he pondered possible ideas to turn into a feature film. After some googling, he came across a book, originally published in the 1980s, called The Life and Crime of Charles Sobhraj, and was quickly drawn back into the murky world of the snake.
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