Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

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.

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.

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

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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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.