Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

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source: Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

First of all, I am friends with the parents of the doctor who was murdered by his ex-lover. This documentary was made by a friend of the victim, with whom he grew up, and who is a respected filmmaker in his own right. The miscarriage of justice in attempting to extradite (from Canada to the U.S.) the woman who murdered the doctor is difficult enough to comprehend, but there are yet other complicating factors, such as her having her victim's baby and the attempts of the baby's grandparents (parents of the victim) to obtain custody of the baby. The film is staggering, and the filmmaker does not spare the viewer's emotions. It is brilliantly filmed and edited. The movie was premiered in the U.S. at the Slamdance Film Festival in Utah, then showed in San Jose, CA at the Cinequest, and is going on to the South by Southwest Festival in Texas. If you have a chance, check out this film--it's not particularly uplifting, but it portrays a very real problem with our justice system, not only Canada's.

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.

I got so many good reviews and recommendation by a lot of people in reddit so I have to watch this. In the end, it looks like a very good doc.. until mid of movie. I lost interest in the story because it is mostly personal view of director and their friends. I don't have feeling of rooting for victim because it's too much story from grand dad and grand mom. It is more like an advertiser for their book.

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.

It makes me sad to see people criticizing "Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father" for its technical limitations. I rented knowing only it was about a pregnant woman who killed her ex-boyfriend, the subsequent plight of the victim's parents and their agonizing efforts to win the custody of their grandson, Zachary (whose mother was released on bail). But the whole story is so unpredictable - and devastatingly sad - that the less you know about it, the better. Writer/director/producer/composer Kurt Kuenne was a close friend of Dr. Andrew Bagby, who was killed by a psychotic woman, "Dr." Shirley Turner, right after he had broken up with her. He decided to make a final film with his childhood friend Andrew, and when they learned Shirley was pregnant with Andrew's baby, whom she named Zachary, it became more than a tribute to a friend, but a project to show Zachary the father he would never get to know. With Shirley at large, however, their nightmare wasn't over. With such a tough, emotional subject, it would be easy to get overtly sentimental, but Kuenne does a terrific job. The film is obviously a very personal project, and visibly no-budget, but that's not an issue because this is not a film meant to be visibly stunning. Apparently, some people are way too cynical to appreciate a film for its heart and content rather than focusing on its aesthetics and "artiness". It had a much bigger effect on me than the last Oscar winner for Best Documentary, "Man on Wire" (a fine film itself). Had this film been directed by, say, Michael Moore, it would have been more incendiary and garnered larger media attention, but wouldn't have been half as passionate, compelling and, most important, honest. Kuenne uses the cinematic tool to document history, make a tribute for beloved friends (not only Andrew and little Zachary, but also Andrew's parents, David and Kathleen, the emotional core of this story) and to instigate the audience, both emotionally and intellectually. When most movies that get a wide release don't even attempt either of these goals, this is a remarkable achievement. Not to be missed. 10/10.

Although I would agree that the documentary recounts a sad story, I had heard about the story in the news, so I knew how the story ended. Without giving the basic plot of this documentary away, it's a very sad and sometimes frustrating narrative. The story of the way the justice system worked with regard to a local woman, Shirley Turner, in St. John's, Newfoundland sounds pretty stupid on the part of most of the lawyers and judges involved in the case. Nevertheless, as a documentary this is an awful piece of filmmaking. The story involves the murder of a young American man, Andrew Bagby, by a Canadian woman from Newfoundland, Shirley Turner. The director was a childhood friend of the deceased and part of the narrative is the journey literally taken by car from California to Nfld. by the director/filmmaker. Along the way the director meets friends of the deceased and there is even a few moments given to mourn the death of a relative of the deceased from cancer. Why? Because he was a relative of the deceased and a hell of a nice guy. The documentary criticizes the problems with the justice system in St John's, Nfld. that affect the murder case and later events. But there is absolutely no attempt to research this topic besides some scenes purporting to be cold calls to some of the lawyers and judges. We view the story largely through the eyes of the director and the parents of the young American man. Thus the film is basically a moral condemnation and denunciation of the woman Turner. But what struck me in the end was that the woman who murdered Bagby was seriously ill. I am not excusing this woman, but in the end it is quite obvious to me that she was just being who she was, a seriously disturbed and potentially violent person. Therefore, despite all the best of intentions of the filmmaker and the friends and family of Bagby, the anger, hostility, and moral condemnation against a person who was obviously mentally disturbed creates a strange effect on a film supposedly made to show love for the deceased Bagby and a child who was possibly his son (considering the erratic behavior of Turner, I wondered if anyone actually ever verified whether the child was Bagby's for certain). Turner was a sick person. That goes without saying. But in the end the hostility towards her just seems to me to show that those involved, including Bagby's parents and the filmmaker himself, were "infected" by the horrible person named Turner (truly the movie's "villain") so that they too end up as spiteful and antagonistic as Turner. In other words, everyone plays along with Shirley Turner. With a disturbing atmosphere of self-righteous and un-self-conscious aggressivity, the film attempts to gloss over emotions of violence and hatred. But by hating Shirley Turner so clearly, the film asks the viewer to participate in the same emotions of manipulation and twisted emotionality it condemns in Turner herself. I felt at times that the use of repetition of some of the clips was truly in bad taste. The closing words of a letter "Love Kurt" cannot hide the pure hatred and revenge the film perpetuates. I suppose if the purpose of the film is to vent and spew hatred against a mentally deranged person, "Dear Zachary" is a success. Personally, I found it awful that they would ask one of Turner's own children from a previous relationship to come on camera to castigate a mother who probably left him long ago. But everything is fair game since it is after all for Andrew Bagby, then for Zachary, and finally for the Bagby parents, those loving grandparents who decided that their son lived in the child carried by Shirley Turner, a disturbed, violent, psychopathic woman who wanted to be recognized so much, even of it meant making those around her want to kill her. And they do.