The film begins with a slow track shot toward a small house in the picturesque Italian town of Perugia. It's an almost paradise-like place, which initially makes it hard to imagine that it was here the 21-year-old British exchange student Meredith Kerscher was brutally stabbed to death just over nine years ago. But even in the most inviting of places darkness lurks, and this contrast is undeniably deeply fascinating. The investigation of the murder became a global media circus of rare proportions.
But the focus of this documentary is not the victim, but as the title testifies, it's rather the story of the then main suspect Amanda Knox, Kerscher's American roommate. Knox spent a full four years in an Italian prison before she and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were acquitted in two instances and released after a number of appeals, an outcome that brought mixed feelings among the other parties involved.
Everything started on November 1, 2007. The then 20-year-old Amanda Knox, who had left the comfort of home in Seattle to study in Perugia, Italy, worked part time at a bar. This evening Amanda was supposed to work the late shift, but her boss sent a text message and told her she wasn't needed. Instead, she decided to spend the night with Raffaele. According to herself, Amanda came home around lunch-time the following day. She shared the apartment with Kercher, but instead of finding her she was met by an open door and a bathroom covered in blood. Eventually, Amanda called her own mother, who urged her to contact the police. Two policemen arrived at the scene and shortly after one o'clock in the afternoon they found Meredith's body. It was covered with a blanket, and she had been sexually assaulted and had her throat cut.
After I finished watching the movie last night a few questions were spinning in my head:
1. Why on earth did she take a shower when she got home? If I'd come home to find that the front door was ajar, as well as noticing traces of blood in the bathroom, would I then take a shower?
2. What the bleep is up with the Italian CSI if they aren't able to decide whether it's one or three perpetrators, or which knife was used in the crime?
3. Was it really a coincidence that she got together with Rafaelle only a few days before the murder?
"Either I'm a psychopath in sheep's clothing, or I'm you" Knox says to the audience early in the documentary, and it really encapsulates one of its strongest aspects. Either we see a calculating and cold-blooded killer in front of us, or she's the ultimate representation "wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time" that ends up in a Hitchcockian nightmare. No matter which option you think is closest to the truth it's an uncomfortable position. The collision between the two perspectives gives the story emotional depth and raises most interesting questions.
The film depicts two other main players in the Kerscher-case; the Italian justice system and the international media. The former is represented mainly by the prosecutor Giuliano Mignini and the latter by the Daily Mail journalist Nick Pisa. Through interviews with these two we get a clear picture of an infinitely problematic and sometimes incompetent investigation, and the constant attempts to character assassinate Knox and Sollecito by the press. The tricks that both camps used are so ugly and unethical that it boggles my mind.
The prosecutor's increasingly wild suspicions leaked at a record pace to the press, in Italy, UK, USA, and soon the whole world. The media eagerly soaked it all up and spiced it with Halloween Pictures from Amanda's social media profiles, gossip and stolen diary entries. Gone was the kind, innocent Amanda Knox. In the media, and to the whole world she was now the beautiful, bloodthirsty and dangerous "Foxy Knoxy" with a promiscuous sex life, that had forced her boyfriend and another man to kill her friend in a spectacular sex murder. The court, now with the whole world watching, seemed to base the verdict on the tabloid filth: 26 years imprisonment for murder.
Both Mignini and Pisa defend their actions in an almost surreal manner, which sometimes makes me wonder if it's fiction that I'm watching. Mignini compares himself with his idol Sherlock Holmes and talks about how much he enjoys his near sainthood status in Perugia, while Pisa thinks it's "just as good as having sex" to pump out sensationalist headlines. It sounds like a joke, but it's not, it's reality. Blackhurst and McGinn takes a few steps back, observe from a distance, and let the prosecutor and journalist shoot themselves in their feet in an epic fashion.
The problematic behavior of Knox's opponents obviously doesn't necessarily make her innocent, but if you value the rule of law in a society, acquittal was the only sensible and reasonable outcome considering the amount of foul play. The filmmakers leave plenty of room for everyone to form their own opinions about Knox's role in the whole thing. Sure, Knox is "different", she acted irrationally under tremendous pressure and can easily be perceived as uncaring and callous, but it doesn't necessarily make her a murderer. "These are my eyes, they're not objective evidence" she says at one point, which hit me really hard. The interviews with Knox are undoubtedly the strongest card in the documentary.
With recent longer "true crime" productions fresh in mind, such as the brilliant and spine-chilling "The Jinx", there are aspects that I wish were developed more thoroughly here. A meatier miniseries version would have been able to give more space to the victim(s), and also to Rudy Guede, who is now serving a 16-year sentence for the murder. But this isn't a film about them - this is a film about Amanda Knox and her journey.
The documentary is equally narratively fascinating as it's aesthetically satisfactory. Blackhurst's cinematography is impressive, which also contributes to the fiction feel to the film. This is combined almost seamlessly with archival material and lavish animations. The result ultimately feels like a fairly complete picture of the case.
— SteemSwede
