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| dailymail.co.uk |
As you might expect from the title, Amanda Knox deals with the murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21 year old British exchange student, in Italy and the subsequent trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for the crime. Those who followed the case (I wasn’t one of them) know the media circus that utterly destroyed Knox’s life and the pretty poor police work that landed her in prison in the first place, but at the end of the day she was finally acquitted and is now back at home in the United States. What this documentary does is analyze the events of the murder, murder coverage, and trials from the perspectives of the key players and gets their views on what happened, creating some rather interesting moments that will leave you thinking.
Before I go into this, I have to admit that I am naturally drawn to liking documentaries. Since they’re usually based on true stories and involve real people, I immediately attach myself to them emotionally and get swept up in it, with movies like Blackfish and Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father ranking high on the list of my most emotional experiences with a movie. Thus, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that I was actually very fascinated and intrigued by this movie. The entire Amanda Knox case is filled with incredibly strange people and events that don’t necessarily add up, and the documentary gives everyone their fair chance to talk while also presenting the actual facts (none of which actually pointed to any guilt on her part). As a good summary of the case, it does its job well.
The thing this documentary does really well is hit the Italian justice system and the media hard for their roles in this miscarriage of justice. The reason that Amanda Knox was tried and convicted was really based on cultural misunderstandings, as the Italian police looked at her own grief-stricken reactions to Miranda's death and the subsequent questioning as admissions of guilt. When called on the fact that there was no DNA evidence to convict Knox, the defense attorney of Rudy Guede (who DID have DNA evidence pointing to him as the main suspect, though he was also released) replied “In 1308 Italy opened the first law center in Europe. In America they were drawing bison on cave walls.” Such arrogance really nails home how blind they were to the actual facts, and how all they cared about was a conviction, something we’ve seen before. The media doesn’t get off either, as the directors allow Nick Pisa, a reporter for The Daily Beast, to dig himself into a hole with little anecdotes about the coverage of the case that serve as disgusting reminders of how much the media doesn’t care about facts. He gleefully (often laughing as he recounts the stories he shared that were later proved false) talks about his role in shaping the public’s perception of Amanda, using her diaries and rumors that he was able to find to paint her as a sex-crazed whore that murdered Kercher when she wouldn’t give into Knox’s desires. Seeing this jackass reporter (being British doesn’t help him) gloat about his success covering this case is nauseating, and should remind American audiences of how horrible the media can be.
What this film does the best, though, is presenting Amanda Knox with a platform to show the world the side of her that wasn’t displayed during the trials. She comes across as an off kind of person but a nice one as well, never seeming too strange to where you feel like she’s lying about anything. We get to see her recount the events in Italy and how she felt about them, but what really hits is when she finally breaks down about her incarceration and the hopelessness that she felt. This is before we get to the point where we actually examine the evidence more thoroughly, but her honest and unscripted emotional outburst really sells her innocence well.
In the negatives category, there are two pretty big things that consistently took me out of the movie. The first is the direction itself, and I’m not talking about in the beautiful scenery shots of Italy or the editing of the footage available for the movie. I’m talking about the interview sections, where they directors let the camera linger on their faces for way too long after they finish their statement, as if to elicit some sort of emotion from the audience. This works in narrative films, where actors can deliver some powerful moments merely using facial expressions (this scene from 12 Years a Slave comes to mind), but here we’re dealing with non-actors who are just staring at the screen waiting for the next question. It’s awkward and clunky, and it breaks the flow of the movie way too often to just be a nitpick.
The other thing that got me is how rushed the movie feels at times, with entire swaths of time that should contain important information being completely glossed over. I understand that they only had ninety minutes, but I feel like a longer and more in-depth examination of this case would’ve made the final impact of the film hit us harder. At the end of the day you feel like you got the most important bits of the case, but that there are other things buried within that make you want to figure them out on your own. While I can’t fault a documentary for encouraging us to go and do research, I don’t think this is the way to do it.
Amanda Knox isn’t a perfect documentary, but it is still a captivating look at a misunderstood woman and the miscarriage of justice that ruined her life. If you’re interested in the case or true crime, you owe it to yourself to check this out. If not, then I still think you should see it to stay informed, especially the message about the corruption of the media. And given that it’s available on Netflix, you really have no excuse to not see it! It’s worth your time!
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Amanda Knox is on Netflix now.
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