Dear Zachary Critique

"Dear Zachary" is a 2008 documentary by Kurt Kuenne with the tagline "a letter to a Son about his Father".
 The story follows Kuenne as he discovers the background around the story of his best friends murder. Dr Andrew Bagby was found in a car-park in 2001 stabbed to death.
 Shortly after his death, Andrews Semi-secret girlfriend Shirley announces she is pregnant with his child. After she gives birth, Kuenne goes on a journey to see Kathleen and David, Bagby's parents in Newfoundland, Canada. On the way he visists every person who had known Andrew, and documents it with the intention of giving the "cinematic scrapbook" to Andrews son newborn son, Zachary. Girlfriend and mum to Zachary, Shirley Turner then becomes a prime suspect in the murder case, but is incredibly allowed to remain caring for Zachary.
 Kuenne's documentary then turns to the case, and the fight between Shirely and Kathleen and David Bagby for custody of 13 month old Zachary which tragically ends when Shirely chooses to end both of their lives by jumping into the atlantic ocean in August 2003 with Zachary strapped to her chest.
 Although this subject that Kuenne is documenting is a very sad and heartbreaking story, he remains upbeat for a majority of the film. As he visists people that Andrew knew, Kuenne keeps the story going by telling funny stories of his friend and helping each person through their own memories. He keeps whole feeling of the film light and funny trying to make it a nice collective for andrews son to watch as he grew older. After Zacharys death however, the filming became more intense and the film then turned into a showcase of how the legal system had let the Bagby's down. Kurt says "I wanted to make this movie as funny as I could, because I wanted it to mirror Andrews personality."
 As each relative, friend and collegue uses their own words to describe their friend, Kuenne uses an editing technique within the film to overlap their words and create the feeling that Andrew is very well known, friendly and loved by all. I think this technique is very clever because it is fast, gets the point across and then allows a shocking comment to have the full effect intended when the cheerful comments stop. An example of this technique is very clearly shown in the trailer above for the film.
 Another technique that Kuenne uses is a variety of good and bad archival material, including videos of Andrew making his own films combined with pictures from the crime scene where he was stabbed. I think that using this combined footage allows the audience to make a connection with Andrew and therefore gives them a connection with Zachary, Kurt Kuenne, Kathleen and David, and all of his other friends. It also gives the audience a reason to hate Shirley, because almost from the start, they know the extent and brutality of her crime from seeing the police pictures and evidence. Kuenne describes that this was how he inteded the audience to feel. "My goal was to make people, by the end of the movie, feel like they knew the people and were part of this family, so they would feel personally attacked and want to do something."
 I looked at this documentary with the view of learning about different editing techniques, and although I have realised some potential ideas for the editing of my video, I feel I have also seen the effect that archive footage can have on a production, and will take this into consideration whilst filming my own project.