Stories

The best documentaries tell stories fiction wouldn’t dare to reach for.  And today, I watched a very fine documentary indeed.  It’s called Dear Zachary: A letter to a son about his father.  The story is a simple one, though sensational: Andrew Bagby is murdered.  The prime suspect in the case, his unstable ex-girlfriend, flees from the US (where the murder occurred) back to her native Canada, later revealing that she is pregnant with Andrew’s baby.

Andrew’s friend and film-maker since childhood, Kurt, embarks on a mission to make a documentary about Andrew, and about what happened.  Kurt interviews friends, family, talks about the extradition proceedings, and much more besides.  What emerges is a deeply moving story.  The documentary film itself becomes a letter to the unborn child, but remains a love letter to Andrew, too.  It is brimming with emotion, with love and sorrow and fun and agony and, yes, anger, too.  Over its course, the talking head testimony from the people whose lives Andrew shared slowly reveal an imprint of who he was, of what one person can mean, and the space they leave behind.  It’s life-affirming but tragic, inspiring but fundamentally upsetting.

It’s not easy to watch.  But right from the beginning, it will exert a pressure on you to keep going, to find out more about the man at centre of it all.  When it finished, I was left pinned to my sofa, unable to move.  It is exhausting, shattering, and – if you have any heart at all – it will leave you profoundly affected.  It knocked my whole day off its axle.

All I can say is, watch it.