A NIGHTMARE WITH NO END
The present’s most gorgeous achievement is certainly its one-take fashion. Every hour-long episode is filmed in a single take which, as director Philip Barantini explains, “mainly signifies that we press file on the digicam, and we don’t cease till the very finish of the hour”.
Tapping into as we speak’s true crime zeitgeist, the sequence renders Jamie’s story extra actual than it really is by imitating the cinéma vérité fashion of documentary filmmaking.
Every episode creates an immersive fly-on-the wall expertise that’s deeply compelling and uncomfortable. The shortage of breaks forces viewers to really feel as trapped because the characters, in an unfathomable spiral via confusion, guilt and disgrace.
This unease is heightened when the motion is shot in claustrophobic areas, equivalent to contained in the household van or a police interrogation room.
The soundtrack provides one other layer of gritty true crime trauma, with random sirens, slamming doorways and thumping discordant notes designed to reflect the inside turmoil of the characters.
Because the story unfolds, it charts the devastating influence of Jamie’s crime on these round him. Whereas Katie’s faculty mates wrestle to course of their incomprehensible grief, Jamie’s dad and mom should additionally confront their son’s capability for cruelty.
“We made him,” despairs Jamie’s mom (Manda Miller).
The unbroken fashion, on this regard, is essential for understanding how damaged this household is. As a result of there aren’t any cuts, there isn’t any escape from the nightmare.
Certainly, Jamie appears to have fallen via the cracks of the social establishments we relied on within the pre-internet age: The education system, the judiciary and the household itself.
