It’s sad to contemplate why so many films about injustice toward children are being made, but Kurt Kuenne’s troubling, driven, heart-wrenching “Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father” is masterful. Its power has stunned many, for better and for worse, such as in this angry, anguished observation from New York magazine critic David Edelstein: “Among the most enraging [documentaries on this subject] I’ve ever seen, and while it’s fine and heartfelt and I commend it to those of you with strong constitutions, it is the film that has finally broken me.” Some might have that reaction. “Dear Zachary” is an investigation of a murder, collated over many years, of a childhood friend of the director, a doctor named Andrew Bagby. Along the way he discovers there’s a son, born to Bagby’s emotionally disturbed killer, and Kuenne sets out to assemble memories of the father he will never know. The real-life narrative complications grow, and with Kuenne’s exemplary yet brutally fast-paced editing, break the heart. 95m. (Ray Pride)
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