Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (Kurt Kuenne, 2008) I find it difficult to rate a documentary like
Dear Zachary. The subject matter is compelling, infuriating, extremely depressing. I understand why so many viewers are an emotional wreck after watching it. I think it would be damn near impossible to tell this story
without getting a rise out of viewers. Therein lies my issue: the tears and anger that this documentary produces are solely a response to the tragic true-life tale.
Dear Zachary was initially meant as a "cinematic scrapbook" only to be shared among friends and family of Andrew Bagby, the slain father of the title, and that lack of professionalism shows in the amateurish editing and clumsy construction of facts and events. Thankfully the story is powerful enough that it leaves a lasting impact despite the lackluster execution from director Kurt Kuenne.
I'm not typically a fan of documentaries that mostly consist of sit-down interviews and archival footage. That's just a personal preference, but
Dear Zachary made me feel as if I was watching some homemade episode of
Dateline rather than an acclaimed documentary. I also think that documentaries should strive to be impartial. That's impossible with
Dear Zachary due to Kurt Kuenne's closeness to the subject matter. Judging by this film, Andrew Bagby was one of the greatest humans to ever walk the earth -- a high-in-demand best man, friend of everyone, funny, sweet, selfless, caring, highly intelligent. I don't necessarily think the interviewees were being disingenuous, but the nonstop barrage of praise ate up too much of the runtime and left me rolling my eyes. Since this film is framed as "a letter to a son about his father," I couldn't help thinking that they were unintentionally f**king this kid up, cobbling a pair of shoes so unreasonably large that nobody can fill them. The one-sided attack against the accused also annoyed me and left me anxious to hear something,
anything, from the other side. Of course, once the full story is told, those issues become non-factors. However, had the layout been less clumsy, the biased narration less aggressive, such issues would not have existed in the first place.
Judging by reviews, the intimate connection that the filmmaker shares with the subject matter is a positive attribute for many viewers, so clearly I'm in the minority with my opinion. People seem to like the amateurish, homemade production because it adds to the sincerity, making
Dear Zachary feel less like a normal documentary than a highly personal tribute to a fallen friend. This is essentially a private film diary made public. I do think that the film's unbridled anger toward the failed justice system elevates the last portion of the film into an impassioned cry for reform, which I'm happy to read was successful. (I could've done without the animated lip syncing for the lawyers, however, which feels like something from a lame comedy sketch on YouTube, but those are the types of amateurish tactics that Kuenne repeatedly employs, always undercutting the emotion of his own story instead of allowing it to speak for itself.) The backyard movies that Kuenne made with Andrew provide a poignant resource of archival footage, many of which fit eerily into the narrative; although Kuenne has a tendency to reuse some of those scenes to an annoying degree, diluting their impact. The film takes many twists and turns, some of which are hard to fathom, so it's best to watch
Dear Zachary with limited knowledge of the real-life events. This is a story that needed to be told. I just think that it could've been told much more effectively.
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