First, there is he declaration that no one has ever been convicted of the crime of killing a four-year-old child. That is repeated at the beginning and of each episode. Then follows 13 years (plus) of archival news footage and interviews laying out a more complicated than usual conflict within clans of a small French village. We're left feeling all avenues have been explored and due to the length of time that has passed, the consequences of various players in the drama (and it's quite a drama), we accept that the likelihood of ever knowing who, what and where the crime occurred seems oddly justified. In short it's a huge mess. The filmmaker's frequently return to a portrait of the victim to keep bringing us back to the innocent victim, who often gets lost in the drama that unfolds.
It's rare that so much news footage exists around a crime of ordinary--even banal--people. But the circumstances and the pathos created by the victim(s) electrified not just a nation but also the tabloid press which pushed the narrative in (often) the wrong direction. And the byzantine legal system in France would have to back-track, and any particular iron that was hot had cooled, and new targets of the public and the investigation would be concocted.
This is a sad, haunting series with very vivid players both in the courts, the tabloid press, and the family...which likely hides the perpetrator(s). And the motive (envy or jealousy or retaliation) hints at a desperately troubled--and petty--mind.
If there's any fault it's the number of leads and interviewers. But that is the heart of this particular case: too many cooks stirring and sensationalizing a heartbreaking situation, and we would have felt betrayed by the filmmakers for withholding any of it.
It's rare that so much news footage exists around a crime of ordinary--even banal--people. But the circumstances and the pathos created by the victim(s) electrified not just a nation but also the tabloid press which pushed the narrative in (often) the wrong direction. And the byzantine legal system in France would have to back-track, and any particular iron that was hot had cooled, and new targets of the public and the investigation would be concocted.
This is a sad, haunting series with very vivid players both in the courts, the tabloid press, and the family...which likely hides the perpetrator(s). And the motive (envy or jealousy or retaliation) hints at a desperately troubled--and petty--mind.
If there's any fault it's the number of leads and interviewers. But that is the heart of this particular case: too many cooks stirring and sensationalizing a heartbreaking situation, and we would have felt betrayed by the filmmakers for withholding any of it.