This Is the Zodiac Speaking

Available as a bonus feature on the Blu-ray release of David Fincher's 'Zodiac', this documentary on the unsolved Zodiac Killer mystery features interviews with the policemen who worked the case in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as Bryan Hartnell, who survived a Zodiac attack by pretending to be dead. As all in question recount events in impressive detail, it soon becomes clear just how much of an impact the case has had on their lives; most telling is one police officer who rues the fact that contemporary technology was not available back then, suggesting that the case could have been easily solved with current technology. Interesting as the content may be, the documentary is not particularly well assembled. As the interviews are filmed without reaction shots, director David Prior has to keep resorting to jarring fades to black in the middle of interviews. Prior's voice is also awkwardly heard off-screen at scattered points as he occasionally throws questions at the interviewees, which detracts from the intimacy of the interviews. The film has some very good animation effects at least with detailed maps that give a good sense of the buildings and roads in pertinent areas. Hartnell's interviews are also sublimely spliced with archive footage of him talking about his experiences from a hospital bed - a technique that highlights his incredible resilience to move on by forcing us to compare and contrast him at different stages of his life. All in all, this is a worthwhile if flawed documentary that both complements the Fincher film and works fine on its own.