User reviews

I just completed watching this harrowing documentary and it is only now that, having got the time to catch my breath, I am able to review it.

To begin with, I'd recommend not reading any of the other reviews so that you start watching it with absolutely no foreknowledge, and so that the film gets the opportunity to have the impact that it is designed to have, which, in my opinion, would only be fair to the director. Therefore without revealing the story I would only like to mention that this is a documentary that the film maker has made in remembrance of his close friend and his family; and its a bloody good watch.

The direction is great and the best part is that this documentary is made in 'real time'; which means that events unfold as the film progresses. This is probably something that I've never experienced in any other documentary before, since most of them are made in retrospect. It makes its point clean and crisp and it will certainly not be a waste of your time and money.

The film progresses in a quick and efficient manner and the time just seems to fly. The film is narrated in a very smart way with plenty of smash cuts. This documentary plays like a big budget commercial Hollywood film and will probably have you glued right up to the last minute.

So its good stuff. If you get the chance to watch it I'd recommend it. If you don't, well that's just too bad.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father is easily one of the most traumatic films I've ever seen. Its not technically the most impressive documentary film, but the subject matter is powerful-enough that you cannot help but be deeply impacted by the story. I've hesitated to suggest it to a few of my more fragile friends because it is one of those films that can leave you in an emotional funk for days afterward. Its that powerful of a film, but not for the faint of heart. I personally would not watch it again, though I'm grateful that the filmmaker stuck with the project through it all and did not give up, as many would have. I'm grateful this story was told, even if it was painful to experience.

The subject matter of this documentary is overwhelming. The facts are harsh and unforgiving. The devil is real.

It started out as a remembrance for a son about his father and it became so much more.

I saw this film Sunday and it still resides in my heart and haunts me. This is the first documentary I have ever seen that has drawn me in completely, and made me feel as though I am part of the story and a friend to the victim. It was a roller-coaster of emotions and there were quite a few teary-eyed people by the end. I feel I had to give it a proper review, but like many have stated, it's hard to do so without ruining the effect the filmmaker intends. This story pulls you along and unfolds as it does for our narrator, the filmmaker, Kurt Kunne. His story is personal because he grew up with the central figure, Dr. Andrew Bagby.

Andrew's parents, David and Kate, whom I had a chance to meet with after the screening, are lovely people, and I instantly saw why they foster so much love and support throughout the film: They are genuinely kind people who give off a wonderful parental-vibe. They show so much love and hope in the face of almost insurmountable evil. You hold onto their love and hope through the last few minutes, and eventually you find what the narrator finds: inspiration.

The editing and the directing reveal a truly gifted filmmaker, Mr. Kunne, a superb storyteller, bounces back and forth between past and present events. He reveals what happens at several key points which leads us an ending you should rather just see than have me explain.

From what I've read there were several richly deserved standing ovations as the film ventured into the festival circuit. If you have a chance to see, "Dear Zachary," this film will be playing until Thursday of this week at the arc-light cinemas in Hollywood. The filmmaker, Kurt, said the film will be making a return to Hollywood in early November and shall be coming to New York City in late October, MSNBC will be premiering the film December 7th and the DVD shall go on sale some time in mid-FEBRUARY.

I suggest everyone pays their money to see this film for the sake of advocacy groups and to support bail reform in Canada. Although the legal system in Canada is put on trial in this documentary, it reveals a real problem with our own justice system here in the United States, and how some criminals are given preferential treatment over victims and their families' rights.

I cannot tell you how much this film has affected me. How truly inspirational I find David Bagby and Kate Bagby to be…

Please support Academy caliber documentaries, with a strong sense of heart, and a great message of hope. This is a wonderful, albeit tragic and yet inspiring film.

This is one of the best movies I have ever seen. I have never been affected by a movie as much as this. Ever since i saw this movie, I have not been able to get the story out of my head. The way Kurt uses home movies and interviews to capture the essence of Andrew is perfect. I feel like i know and love the Bagby family. The film takes you through Andrews life showing the people that he touched along the way. The quote that really stuck with me was when Clark said something along the lines of "What would life be if this one person never existed". This is very relevant because of this movie to this day Andrew is affecting the lives of people that he never met including mine. He has inspired me to really cherish the relationships that I have, because life is too short for petty things. I have never cried in a movie, but this movie managed to get me to cry within the first 20 minutes. I am not a movie critic so i do not know how to write a review, all you gotta do is watch the movie. You are doing yourself a disservice if you miss this beautiful tribute. Much love to the Bagby friends and family.

It's been about 4 years since I first watched this documentary, and I can honestly say that it still haunts me to this day. The unfolding of this story is so impactful. So raw. So heartbreaking.

Do yourself a favor and DO NOT look up anything about this case before or during your watch.

Paradise Lost has always been my favorite documentary series of all time. But this one is either tied for first or a very, very close second.

This is a truly devastating documentary all around, but their story is so incredibly important for the world to know. I promise, this documentary and story will stick with you for the rest of your life.

I have never wrote a review before but if any film deserves one, it is Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father.

My mom and I are avid documentary watchers and we stumbled upon this doc when was on Netflix around 2013. We knew nothing going into it. But we were immediately transfixed. For a solid hour and a half we watched through laughter, through streaming tears, through the most abject, repugnant horror, and through the love that radiates from every person in this film.

Directed by Kurt Kuane, Andrew Bagby's best friend, he turned unspeakable tragedy into a story of love, justice, and a call for activism for bail reform, exposing the multiple failures of the justice system. Kurt also did an amazing job composing this film because by the end, you feel like you knew Andrew. You can feel the immense love and grief at the loss of his life and the impact it had, an impact that rippled like a tidal wave across the world by all those that love him. And to me, more than anything, you get to know Andrew's parents, David and Kate Bagby. There are not any words to describe those two beautiful, strong, resilient, dedicated, loving, angels-on-earth type of human beings they are. My heart aches and breaks for them. For all the horror that is documentary shows, there is a resounding notion of overwhelming love. For the violent, brutal, sickening, unthinkable, unspeakable atrocity these beautiful people have been through... I admire them from the bottom of my heart.

This documentary will rip your heart into pieces, ignite a burning fire of hatred in your soul... but it's worth every moment to "get to know" these beautiful people and the resilience that true love can sustain.

If you want more information after watching this, David Bagby write an incredible and just as heart breaking book called Dancing With The Devil that gives an in-depth, first hand account of what Kate and him endured moment by moment.

I would give this a hundred stars if I could.

I hope you've found any type of the slightest bit of peace and solace over the years. My thoughts are never far from you...

Always, A fellow human being

A good friend recommended this documentary but warned that it was very sad. In the end, while it definitely is a heart wrenching story it left me more angry at the people responsible for letting all of this happen than sad. I went in knowing nothing about the documentary or the story and that's the perfect way to watch this. In truth, from a technical perspective it is not necessarily a great documentary; however, everything else about it makes it worthwhile to watch.

Wow, I certainly wasn't expecting it to be this overwhelming. It's the emotional equivalent of having your head kicked in against the curb.

I thought I knew where the story was going but I couldn't shake the sense of sinister dread. I didn't think the story could get any bleaker but then... Maybe I'm doing it a disservice but I would strongly recommend this film to anyone who isn't in an already too fragile state. Because once you invest your own emotions in the story, you are screwed - within minutes I went from sad to angry to shocked and depressed and back and forth etc.

That's quite an achievement. Yes, the film is flawed but you know what? I don't mind that films are flawed, it's the emotional punch that I'm going for. The film is made by someone on a mission (albeit a confused one at times) but the end result is a film that is raw and intimate.

Oh, there is a special place reserved in heaven for all the Bagbys. And a special place in hell for the murderer and the judge who set the murderer loose.

Recently finished my second watch. I first saw Dear Zachary 6-7 years ago.

Although I was not as impressed with the directing this time around, the delivery is still effective. I still don't know what to make of a few of his directorial choices, but I think more than anything, I now understand that he tried to capture the emotions he was experiencing throughout the timeline of what happened.

So, the jump cuts and speedy dialogue ramping up in tempo. The red flashes of the camera (when everyone is seeing red), the calm waves and soothing music when there are melancholic remembrance from family members - all of it sometimes feels random, but so too are emotions.

As the filmmaker relives his grief and then is presented with brand new grief to interrupt the closure process, it all feels messy and visceral at certain moments- and that's arguably how it's supposed to be.

He get the random, racing thoughts of grief right. He gets the waves of calm that transfer to immediate anger right.

Overall I'm not so sure I agree with how he presented the...well you'll know when that bombshell drops...but overall, this documentary took a lot of work, heart, tears, sweat, editing, and care. It's definitely worth a watch.

Dear Zachary Dir. Kurt Kuenne ***** "Perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on."-Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable That final sentence, from one of the great novels of all-time, works here as a description of the heart and soul of this film, the best I've seen all year. Kurt Kuenne sets out to find all there is to know about his murdered friend Andrew Bagby after talking with friends who knew parts about Andrew's life that he never told Kurt. Shortly after stating this endeavor it is revealed that the woman who killed Andrew is also pregnant with his son. Kurt then decides to make the film into a memorial to give to Andrew's son, Zachary.

This is a film that is a search for its filmmaker, a search which ultimately finds itself asking the most unanswerable of questions. The unfolding of the events surrounding the search cause Kuenne to revisit his approach, his interview subjects, and allows the audience a personal look into an artist trying to make sense of the impossible (in fact, the film was never meant to be released except to family members).

Nearly a decade in the making the film compiles years of interviews with dozens of people who knew and loved Andrew, as well as through a number of home videos. Part of makes this a stunning example of art as process, is the fact that Andrew starred Kurt's home made movies growing up, and we see footage from those films, where we see even then the use of film being used to make sense of the world.

The amount of footage, interviews, and information comes at you early and quickly. The audience becomes immersed in the lives of Andrew's family; knows the information when the family knows it, and experiences the events as if they were one of Andrew's friends. An outsider may have been tempted to manipulate the audience, but Kuenne's approach is earnest and admirably restrained. He obviously cares about his friends, and is nothing but charitable to them by his representation (or non-representation in some cases) in this film. That said, Kurt doesn't pretend not to be involved himself. He keeps in narration where he gets emotional. He lets you know that he is frustrated and furious, and that at times he doesn't know where to turn.

This is one of those rare films which is an experience. I cannot remember the last time I was so viscerally effected by a film. Not just in tears but going through a wide range of palpable feelings, some clear cut, some frustratingly ambiguous, and leaving me haunted, purged, shaken. The film allows us to experience with Andrew's parents a diverse and difficult range of emotions. You will be angry, sickened, hopeful, humored, devastated, inspired, awed, depressed, and everything in between. At times you'll want to throw up your hands and say: "I can't go on!" It shows us humanity at its most evil, yet, without being sentimental, shows us how life can go on in the face of incomprehensible horror.

I don't know if I've seen another film which so effectively conveys the impact of the loss of a human life. A shot early on in the film catches a quick glimpse of ripples in a water, and this film looks at those ripples instead of focusing on the initial cause of those ripples.

And in the end, when the film comes back to the filmmaker, on his experience and his journey, in a recap of what we've experienced with humanity in microcosm throughout the film, its a devastating turn which displays the brilliance in the film's structure, despite it appearing a bit haphazard on the surface, all along.

I don't know whether to tell you to read more about the film or not. I've tried not to tell too many details because for full effect, and to do justice to the filmmakers experience you need to let this film wash over you. But I also don't know if some of the more sensitive viewers will make it through this film unprepared. Maybe this will suffice: this is not an easy film; the best never are. But like Becket's Trilogy, by looking through at life through the most hopeless of situations, somehow those who experience the work come out stronger, more human. Victor Frankel's early title for Man's Search for Meaning was "A Case for Tragic Optimism." That is this film.

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If you feel sad about something in your life, please don´t watch this.

If your life´s good...go ahead...

There are very few films ever released that have the raw power and emotion that documentary Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father has within it.

I still remember the day I sat down to watch filmmaker Kurt Kuenne's deeply personal film about his murdered long-time friend Dr. Andrew Bagby and the effect the film had on me (the film is in my top 30 films of all-time) from the moment it started until the moment it finished, it's an effect I've rarely ever had from a film and it's an experience that will live with me forever, such is the undeniable power of this once in a lifetime experience.

Dear Zachary has in the year's since its low-key release in 2008 become a film that is oft talked about in online circles as one of the greatest documentaries ever made and a film that has the ability to shock and awe like none other.

It's an experience that is best watched with as little knowledge as possible, as while Kuenne's film is rough around the edges and at times even amateurish in its approaches, there's something magical and heartfelt within it that makes Kuenne's documentary the experience it has become renowned to be.

Filled with both amazing and terrifying real-life characters that are larger than life in many instances, Kuenne carefully considered and deeply heartfelt examination of the life of his dear friend and those that were a part of his journey is filled with hilariously real insights and stunningly heartbreaking revelations about the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. Bagby and the after-affects the followed.

The other powerful component of Dear Zachary is in its honest examination of the justice system that was present at the time in America and Canada and the way in which Kuenne explores the failure of these areas in the case of the Bagby murder is heartbreaking and highly informative, adding another layer entirely to this otherwise very intimate and unforgettable tale.

Final Say -

If there's ever a film that will break your heart as well as fill it with gladness about the good people in the world its Dear Zachary, a truly life-affirming and life-shattering journey, Kuenne's documentary is a must-watch and quite possibly the most powerful documentary ever produced.

5 home movies out of 5

This documentary is the only film that has made me cry as of November 2023. The amount of love that's poured into every second of this film truly makes me feel like I knew the people involved. The Kate and David Bagby are a couple I often think about even today. Andrew sounds like an amazing person to have known and watching this made me wish I had the opportunity to meet him and his parents. All these people talking about them makes me hope to be even half as loved as either of them were or are.

The twist (no spoilers) genuinely shook me to my core. I remember first watching it when I was 15 with my friend (we were weird teenagers) and the twist made us both lose it.

I could dock a star for the confusion around the legal talk or a few of the editing choices, but those nitpicks are made up for 10 fold. It's a powerful movie that I still think about after 7 years of my first viewing. If you talk about this movie to someone and they didn't cry or get close, run away from them.

Dear Zachary is a documentary, and there is a fallacy about documentaries that this one proves wrong- that they are all logic and lack heart. Kurt Kuenne has made a documentary in a way that a film itself is made, with amazing editing patterns and with a story that really grabs you and moves you. Yes, this is a sad film, but the reason a documentary like this is able to move someone so deeply is not just because it's real, but also because of the craft of the filmmaker. He is trying to make an actual memorial to these people and no words or facts will capture the true horror of a true life event as honestly as what he has created with music. The film plays out very much like a thriller, drama, and tragedy all at once.

Now, to the actual events in the film- horrifying. Of course, the film also takes a look at the unbelievably flawed legal system in Canada, but it makes one wonder. Why? Why? Why? To be honest I have never been fond of Canada and the film might play out like an attack against it but my personal feelings can't be kept inside. It is enough to truly make you hate the country. I just hope the film also makes people notice, which is the point of an actual documentary.

I usually dislike emotionally-manipulative films, but films like this when are well made cannot be disregarded. As a documentary it succeeds amazingly well.

I stumbled upon Dear Zachary while looking for films similar to "A Serbian Film". I went in blind, expecting a similar experience, but was met with something entirely different-and I was not disappointed.

Dear Zachary is a deeply personal documentary, created by Kurt Kuenne as a tribute to his murdered friend, Andrew Bagby. The film starts as a memoir but transforms into a gripping narrative about love, loss, and the impact of tragedy on family and friends.

Initially, I found the memoir segment slow and considered turning it off. However, this segment is crucial as it sets the stage for the documentary's emotional climax. The detailed portrayal of Andrew's life and relationships creates a powerful contrast to the tragic events that follow, making the ending all the more poignant.

Although I have not experienced parenthood nor traumatic loss, which may be why the "gut punch" element others describe didn't hit as hard for me, I still found the film's raw depiction of grief and the effects of loss profoundly moving. The documentary offers a profound look at the power of relationships and the enduring impact of a loved one's absence.

Dear Zachary may not be the film I was initially seeking, but it left a lasting impression with its heartfelt narrative and emotional depth. It's a film that resonates with viewers, offering a poignant reminder of the bonds we share and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable loss.

I'm not going to fawn over this well-meaning (and influential, as it turns out) documentary as some have done. From a filmmaking standpoint, it utilizes a couple of doc techniques I'm not a fan of, including one brief clumsy reenactment. But I'm going to try to describe WITHOUT any spoilers the experience of watching it (in part, because another questionable technique used is one borrowed from fictional thrillers: the slam-bang plot twist coming near the story's end). So the film-viewing experience of watching a guy's best friend since childhood (Kurt Keunne) try to retell the tale of Andrew Bagby's whole life for the benefit of Andrew's first and only child, in words and pictures, right up to and beyond his eventual and tragic murder, is grueling to say the least. But what else could or would one even expect of such an exercise? The ultimate point of it turned out to have been the much-needed reforms to the Canadian criminal justice and child protection systems instituted subsequent to its release. Just who'd have thunk it, huh? If Kurt's point in making it was to share the anger, frustration and deep sadness of his, Andrew's parents' and extended family and many friends' then I must admit: mission also accomplished. Subtracting a star for each annoying technique leaves us with a still decent 7/10 rating. But be forewarned: you won't want to see this again!