I just completed watching this harrowing documentary (Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008) and it is only now that, having got the time to catch my breath.  Zachary is a love letter, a sermon, and a condolence to all friend, Andrew Bagby. His friend, filmmaker Kurt Kuenne, looks at his friend’s past through films, documents from friends and family, and the lens of his camera. Andrew was murdered, in a horrific crime supposedly perpetrated by his then-girlfriend. Kuenne follows the criminal proceedings of her trial while simultaneously exploring the life of a dear friend who seemed beloved by all that met and adored him. Kuenne seems to distance himself at times from the prospect of dredging up the details of the savage shooting of his friend, though he does let himself break down, just once, at the prospect of losing his last link to his past. Besides being interesting due to the premise of the film and the charisma of the focal point, Kuenne has an innovative voice and presence within the film as narrator, that truly ties it together. This could easily have been another special on TrueTV or an inane filler piece on the news, but Kuenne lends truth and clarity to the life of someone he grew up with and watched die. He shows the anger, hostility, and the utter madness of Shirley Turner, who evades capture in Canada and plays a cat and mouse game with Andrew’s parents after revealing she is pregnant. The film becomes a letter to the child, who will never meet his father and is under the duress of his lunatic mother. Using taped phone conversations, found footage, and photographs to show the progression of Zachary’s life and the unraveling of his mother under the pressures of her child, Kuenne documents love for someone who is still just a child.