Director: Rod Blackhurst, Brian McGinn Studio: Netflix Genre(s): Documentary Rated: TV-14 |
The trial of Amanda Knox was one of chaos and wild fairy
tales. I remember seeing headlines that
read “Sex Cult Murder,” “Myspace Vixen Kills Roommate,” and something about
Satan worship that I can’t remember exactly.
These were not the headlines of Enquirer or The Onion though; they were
the headlines of BBC, New York Times, and Chicago Tribune. We read the stories and they felt too weird
and bizarre to possibly be true.
According to Netflix’s new documentary “Amanda Knox,” they were as
untrue as they came. This is, of course,
the film makers personal opinion, but it’s one that I find myself agreeing
with. Ironically, not because of anything
Amanda Knox herself says, but because of the extensive interviews with the head
investigator and a journalist who is hungry to be the first one in the world to
have a big scoop.
This is also, I suspect, what the movie wants to be about,
but doesn’t articulate very well because it finds itself caught up in the very
murder trial it wants to be objective about.
The movie is less than two hours long, which is a criminally brief time
to devote to something that reaches so wide and was so famous. The story of the West Memphis 3 was given
three full length features that were released in a span of almost fifteen
years. The Central Park 5 got multiple
movies, TV specials, and books devoted to the subject. Netflix themselves have greenlit a second
season of “Making a Murderer,” which revolved around a (then) largely unknown
Steve Avery accused of murder. Amanda
Knox is much more famous. Unjustifiably
so, from my perspective, but that too is a result of the media giving her trial
a lot more exposure than most others receive.
What is clear from watching this movie is that there was
this bizarre fascination with her right from the beginning. The Italians singled her out because of her
lifestyle choices, loose nature, and the amount of sex she had. The American media wasn’t shocked so much by
her behavior (she was American after all), but it is a titillating subject to
discuss, and scandalous headlines help sell newspapers. Amid everything everyone seemed to forget
that there were human beings in the center of all this. Real, living, breathing people whose lives were
being commented on and manipulated for political gain and profits. What I find strange about this documentary is
that is revels in the very same thing that it accuses everyone else of doing
wrong. For “Amanda Knox” is only slightly
better journalism than the kind we see in the movie, and it is only a little
less prejudice than the Italian police force it scorns.
Most of the key players get their time to talk (the victim’s
family either weren’t contacted or refused comment), but the film seems to
largely ignore the public. Jury members
are not sought out for comment. The film
makers cards are shown way too early, and thus we the viewers are fully aware
of the position of the producers before any real arguments are made. Considering this is a documentation of a real-life
case that was stranger than anything we’d seen since the O.J. Simpson trials,
the movie is surprisingly predictable.
Before the release Netflix made a huge deal that they caught the live reason
of Amanda finding out that she had been permanently exonerated of the murder
charges and was now – finally – permanently free. It is one of the few genuinely great moments
in the film. The question then, of
course, is what now? What does Amanda
Knox do now that she is legally free from murder charges but permanently famous
over the incident?
How does one return to a normal life after that? What sort of bond does she have with her
former Italian boyfriend having gone through all this? These are the sort of personal questions “Amanda
Knox” doesn’t ask. Nor does the film
seem particularly interested, as it seems more concerned with the system that
arrested Knox and the press that was so quick to feed her to the sharks. That the movie never questions how we let the
systems get to the point where this was possible is equally frustrating. A mini-series would have given the producers
much more time to examine all of this equally, and maybe create a compelling narrative
in the making. Which is a shame because
to find out the real details of Amanda Knox now requires a bit of research, and
as the movie so painfully points out, who knows which articles can truly be
trusted?
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, there is LOTS of discuss about sex, murder, and many graphic images pertaining to both! Recommended for ages 16 and up.
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