Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

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.

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

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.

Voyeurism is a funny thing. Watching other people's little dramas or lives may seem boring at the outset, but often times it can be just as interesting, if not more so, than anything a big studio can come up with. With "Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father," we as an audience get a glimpse into a man that we otherwise would never have known. And after viewing this film, I have to graciously thank writer/director Kurt Kuenne for this.

After the murder of his lifelong best friend, Dr. Andrew Bagby, filmmaker Kurt Kuenne decided to go and interview everyone who knew Andrew in order to give his late friend's soon-to-be born son a way to know his father. But unbeknownst to anyone, this film would turn into something completely different.

Reviewing this film is difficult. For one thing, no one had any idea where this film was going (Kuenne, who narrates, openly admits this, although no one could possibly imagine what was going to happen). But more importantly, this film has something that many films don't: passion. It has a voice. This film will make you laugh, cry, scream in both terror and anger, and so much more. Even the most politically, one-sided films do not speak to the viewer like this film. In that sense, this film is a masterpiece.

But, on a critical scale, it comes up a little short. For me, the most effective bits were the interviews about Andrew. Those were funny and touching. Even if it added a few extra minutes to the running time, it would have been worth it. I felt like I could have watched a whole day's worth of interviews about Andrew. But the film gets into the struggle between Shirley Turner, Andrew's ex-girlfriend and probable murderer and Andrew's parents, who are trying to seek custody Andrew's son, Zachary. The film sort of loses focus at times, and it really inhibits Kuenne's goal in letting us know who Andrew was. At the end, it almost seems like a piece of propaganda (see the movie and you'll understand). Judging by what happens, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but still. Of minor note, the film only shows the good things about Andrew. Not that Kuenne turns him into some sort of flawless figure (Bagby does that himself), but it would have made Bagby seem more well-rounded.

Yet I wholeheartedly recommend this film. It introduces us to a wonderful person, and his name was Andrew Bagby.

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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