Amanda Knox

Following on from the unparalleled success of Making A Murderer, Netflix return with another true crime documentary this time focusing on a highly publicised case instead of a stranger than fiction case as Steven Avery's was.

In November 2007, Amanda Knox a 20 year old American student from the University of Washington was doing a year of study and work in Perugia, Italy. There she was sharing a room with young British introvert Meredith Kercher. On November 2nd, Kercher was brutally murdered by an unknown assailant.  Five days before, Knox had met Raffaele Sollectio at an opera and they started an intense love affair.  Being the room-mate, and being very different from the quieter Kercher; the Italian police force in haste mode with the eyes of the world watching needed to make a quick arrest. Therefore, Knox and Sollectio were arrested and ultimately jailed for the murder of Kercher.

However, the appeals court found that the DNA evidence given as fact in the trial was not sufficient and after review it was found that the presence of Kercher's DNA on the supposed knife that stabbed her was not collaborative with the belief that this knife killed her.  Errors from the police force and the mistakes forcing testimony from scared and innocent individuals, are themes were as an audience are used to following the goings on in Wisconsin.  Sometimes, if you say something enough times a lie becomes fact in the mind of the meek and weak.

The evidence given to us proves that Knox and Sollectio were innocent of the crime, the refusal to believe their collective alibi that they were together in Raffaele's apartment that night was detrimental to the integrity of the Italian Polizi.

You get a sense that the Perugian authorities were fascinated by the eyes of the world falling on their small city with a sex crime demanding action and results.  This need for results and creation of exposure is evoked by the presence of Nick Pisa, journalist of the Daily Mail at the time of the case.

Pisa (ironic he has an Italian name) was the right man in the right place to tell the story for his career, but the way Pisa describes how he went about fabricating and fluffing up the piece to make it more a tale of sordid depravity and sex scandal leaves as bad a taste in the mouth as you had when watching the Prosecutor in the case of Steven Avery. The constant use of words such as sex and the creation of 'Foxy Knoxy' is indicative of a journalistic profession now becoming as sordid as the stories they supposedly cover, with moral integrity jettisoned for the front page headline. The old adage is 'sex sells' and Pisa followed this motive to the nth degree reveals an ugly face of tabloid journalism.

Interestingly, the film by Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn start off the film making you think Knox was lucky to get away with it, she acts aloof in front of the camera and the establishing shots of her in her home cooking surrounding by her cats are shot like a thriller before becoming a mix of talking heads and archive footage a la Errol Morris's The Thin Blue Line.

They may well have had an intention to do something different to normal documentaries, and the poster of her eyes only refers to a line she says, 'You look in my eyes for guilt' but calls back to the films of Hitchcock and the girl in trouble who is more than she appears, but the truth is out and she was found innocent.

All in all, the documentary is restricted by the 90 minute running time when something closer to two hours would have been warranted for a case that gripped the world.

Making A Murderer

This original Netflix documentary series has been getting great reviews of late on social media, and with the need to save money in the new year and stay indoors, this series looking into the many miscarriages of justice that went against Steven Avery, a small town simpleton from Mantiwoc, Wisconsin who got convicted of a rape he did not commit and spent 18 years in prison. And that was who his problems began.

The series is a labour of love for the co-creators Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos (Demos serves as cinematographer and editor also), who delve deeply into the story of Avery who has to overcome small town prejudice to clear his name once he is out of prison.  Having been freed following his wrongful imprisonment, he set about suing the county court, district attorney and sheriff for their errors.  However, two years after being freed for rape Avery is charged for murder by the same town and district court of Wisconsin.

The story is hard hitting, full of moments that will have you aghast at the seemingly unbelievable behaviour of law enforcement officials and agencies who believed a hunch and set about to systematically destroy the livelihood and well being of one man and his family, because of a petty row from years before.

Steven Avery has an IQ of 70, he is not capable of crimes that are heinously thought through, he is a child and thinks accordingly. He loves his family and they love him, they all admit he could not be capable of such acts. The lengths the police went to to get the guy they wanted is an edictment of the police department which is corrupt and full of discrimination across class as well as race borders.

Following recent events in America over the last two years leading yo race riots when white police officers have not had a case to answer for their illegal actions, it is quite haunting to realise that the police force was doing this back in more innocent times of 1985. But is there really any innocent times when you have a police force protecting you as bad as this?

After one episode (out of 10) you wonder how deep and how shocking can this for Avery as he tries to get off with a murder charge.

The film is an amazing odyssey through the traps and machinations of the judicial process in Wisconsin. And while the story is primarily focused on Steve Avery with obvious reason, as his face adorns all the publicity material, the more shocking thread of the ten part series is the parallel narrative of Steve's nephew, Brandan Dassey, who as a young 16 year old of limited mental capacity is bullied by interrogators to confess to his being at the crime scene thus incriminating himself in the process all without a parent or legal representation present to prevent him from doin just that. The police are shown to be just as manipulative as they claim Avery to be in taking advantage of a young mentally handicapped individual; it also shows their desperation to build up a prosecution against Avery in the worst way by attempting to rip the family apart.

Dean Strang and Jerry Buling

Special mention should go to Avery's two defence attorneys, Dean Strang and Jerry Buling, two men who did not have to take the case but do in the interests of fairness, justice and humility. They try their best to convince the jury to no avail, but the narrative they build up to us the audience witnessing all this information for the first time, leaves you shaking your head as to how anyone can think Avery could or would even do this crime.

The documentary also critiques the way the media mostly the television media helped create this tale in their news reports, making it impossible for Avery to get a fair trial in his hometown as the media and police painted a guilty verdict before a trial began. To think this all occurred in 2005 to 2007 before the existence of Twitter and the age of immediacy, where instant judgment is all around us and offered without thought or reflection.

All in all though, an old bit of wisdom comes to mind, the truth is stranger than fiction.