The Staircase

After having watched this, I don’t even know what to think or process. This might be one of the first documentaries to leave me without a lot to say. So much of the runtime is dedicated to throughly examining the case, though there are some missing pieces from the film Michael Peterson dating the film’s editor during the time of filming, and also a bloody footprint found on Kathleen’s body. Regardless, the film still manages to get you to doubt yourself. Just when you think you finally have it all pieced together and you know what the story is the case unfolds and throws something entirely new at you. It is less about the entirety of the case and more about the justice system. There are some shady dealings going on in the documentary dealing with the DA and the blood splatter analyst, which makes you question everything that the prosecution is doing. So much of their tactics makes you wonder what else they could be doing to other innocent people or people innocent beyond a reasonable doubt at the very least. Thanks to the longer running time we get to spend so much time with the Peterson family and get to live with them. While they acknowledge the cameras running they, eventually let it subside as they ebb and flow into their natural lives. Watching the family deal and process with the possibility that their relative murdered one of their own is heartbreaking. Peterson’s kids already had lost one mother, and now they are dealing with the loss of their second mom. Watching them try to not break down during the trials is one of the hardest things to watch. It is the more lived in moments of the series that grip you making the story intimate and miniature despite the enormity of this case and the legacy it now provides. The Staircase is a masterclass of documentary filmmaking that gets high praise for the level of feelings it evokes from the viewers. At times I believed he did it, and at others I couldn’t be so sure, and now I don’t even think about Peterson so much as I do the justice system itself, and that being the goal of the film is to examine the American justice system makes it a successful endeavour. It helps that the story itself is also one that boggles the mind with fresh revelations, each episode with the script getting flipped making you toss and turn because the looming question lives in the shadows of the truth.