Un Café au Cyanure: Le Chaos de l'Affaire Wongso

Why wasn't Hani, who was with Mirna and Jessica, interviewed at all?

I think this is crucial to address because she was in the middle of the emergency situation.

This film feels more like a YouTube documentary than something you'd expect on Netflix.

Asking random people on the street about the case makes it seem like the production team was trying too hard to stretch the content.

Additionally, Jessica Wongso, as the accused, barely gets a chance to speak, which makes the documentary even less valuable.

The film mostly rehashes past events without providing any new or meaningful information to the audience.

This documentary showcases to a global Netflix audience that the Indonesian justice system is still chaotic-if you have money, you have power.

Being from a legal family (American), I watched to see how it's done in Indonesia.

Now that country is off my bucket list!

The two things I took away from this documentary is: The family dictates how far a coroner can go in an autopsy. In this one, the police wanted a full autopsy, but the family didn't allow that. In this instance, they allowed only small blood samples. Nothing in depth.

Second - If you are not beautiful (and in the definition of Indonesian beauty), you are guilty - automatically in the eyes of everyone observing the trial!! Innocence is being beautiful! OMG! You can't make this stuff up!

What's unfair is that it (probably) gives a bad and unfair view of an entire country.

But back to the documentary, it's odd and long. The film clips are often the same.

If you need something to pass the time, or to iron to (Google it!), pay bills, do dishes, this is it.

If you go by this, everyone in Indonesia is insanely vain and vapid. Their legal system is an absolute joke, with everyone involved believing and relying on science and arguments that would be laughed out of any other court in the world. The attention seeking father of the deceased woman was allowed to bring a gun into the court room, as well as place a doctored photo into evidence that was only at the last second discovered and removed. Every high school debate tournament I've seen has been head and shoulders above this country's highest court. Looks like there's a new entrant in the way too crowded race to see who can recreate the world from Idiocracy first.

This film is very good at dissecting the intricacies of the Indonesian legal system and add laying there its flaws. While the Indonesian legal system is certainly unique within the world, it seems that this case is problematic for the reason that many other cases in the world are problematic - media attention. Sometimes I wonder if it would be a better system when you were accused, charged, tried of a crime in secret. That way if you were innocent no one would ever know that you had been accused of a crime, and if you are guilty then your trial has more of a chance to be a fair one without the glare of the media. Of course that system also would probably lead to abuses of power as well. This is an interesting documentary that plays more like a sensationalistic film.

Why did you call such a superficial work a documentary? No conversation was had with other friends at the same table, with other girls in the same WhatsApp group, or even with the husband of the victim. Why are random passersby talking in a documentary about a cyanide coffee case? Like "we made a bet on who would win the case and I won this car from that bet." What is that, why? You shouldn't call it a documentary if you're not going to get people involved to talk. We could get more information than that on the evening news. I was curious about the other 14 cases involving Jessica (which were, of course, also omitted from the documentary), so I googled their names. There's a 60-minute documentary that provides much more information than what's covered in this Netflix production. I mean why? Why would you do a more sloppy job when you had more budget, more reputation, and more opportunities at Netflix?