This documentary series examines the story of Belgian politician Bernard Wesphael, accused of murdering his wife, Véronique Pirotton, in 2013. She had been discovered dead in a hotel room in Ostend. The narrative is constructed in such a way that any empathy for the victim is massacred both by our prejudices against sexist violence and by the rejection generated by the attitude of a woman who has a husband and a lover and who has had a troubled sexual life, and who when it comes to a man who does the same, is barely labelled a Don Juan (lightening any census of social rejection). And it is here where we find the greatest of all the demoralisations that a case like this generates. The reality that it presents to us surpasses any story that could be invented for a film. As a 5-episode series, it takes its time to, in a parsimonious manner, explain the dysfunctional and toxic relationship that began when they met and married three months later, only to have her return to the arms of an old boyfriend shortly after, and for a year they say she attempted suicide several times. They both got drunk and had a tumultuous relationship. During the trial, the victim is torn apart in her image, in her condition as a mother, in her professional life, and above all in her ethics and morals. Those who paint this woman in their own way, also everything they say, how they say it and their opinions regarding Véronique also says a lot about them, which reinforces the oldest prejudice of humanity, which is misogyny… As an irony, the deceased cannot defend herself, but those who judge her accuse themselves of hatred of the female gender, rather than of the woman in a case that is doubtful as to whether it was murder or suicide. The staging leads us to question our subjectivity and is an exercise in questions that arise about the effectiveness of justice and the considerations that lead us to disqualify or judge a woman for the fact of a behavior that is only accepted from men in their sexual relationships. Those two years of work are applauded, hundreds of hours to dive into the archives, another good hundred to convince the protagonists, a year of filming and a great editing job. On Netflix.
HHHH Genre: documentary. Duration: 5 episodes of 40 minutes each.
