Pure Coincidence?

On Sunday afternoon I went with a friend to see a film 'The International', a film by the German director, Tom Tykwer, about the investigations of the Interpol disposed to reveal, at whatever price, the illegal activities of a Luxembourg bank that trafficked in arms destined for African countries.

Later at home, I saw on the local channel TV3 'Traficants de la Mort' (Dealers of Death), a 30 minute programme dealing with more or less the same theme: the story of dubious traders who discovered some abandoned weapons after the conflict, transported in old planes retired from circulation. These were recycled as new war arms. The combination of a conspiratorial fiction that surpasses the thin line of credibility, with a serious report that gives image of the death market.

These are not the only coincidences of the day. Later on the same evening, I saw the re-run of the film 'Zodiac', of David Fincher, about the obsessive investigations of another investigator, dead set to discover the real personality hidden behind the a serial killer that spread panic in San Francisco in the 60's -70's. The film culminated in posing an interrogative, that despite a whole chain of suspects, there's not a single sure thread that linked to any concrete individual.

I saw this film after reading in the paper that same day that a woman, Deborah Perez, declared on the flight of steps of the headquarters of San Francisco Chronicle (where assassins' letters and cryptograms usually end up) that her father, Guy Ward Hendrickson, was the killer of the Zodiac, and that she found out this only after she saw the film of Fincher. Recognising some of the episodes described in it her own memory as a child when, being very small, had accompanied her father in some of his misdeeds.

Let's mark 2 points: 1 - The man accused by his own daughter has been dead and buried for 26 years. 2 - The daughter is now shooting a documentary on the theme, where she wants to show, with proof and all details, that her father deserves the recognition as one of the refined artist in the art of mortal games. Sounds like she was rather proud of him!!

The coincidences between the news, the documentary, and the film of fiction about what's real, feed on one another blurring all boundaries. As if to comprehend something we need all the communicative arsenal: film, television, press and market. And, lots of marketing.

Tags:documentary,coincidence,assassin

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