Yara is a movie about a criminal case in Italy. Yara is the name of a girl killed in 2010. The man who was sentenced to life repeats: “I am innocent!”.
The Italian movie Yara, on Netflix, tells the story of the 13-year-old girl who passed away on November 26, 2010, in Brembate di Sopra (Bergamo, Italy). And then was found lifeless, left to die of wounds and cold, on February 26, 2011.
Massimo Giuseppe Bossetti was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2014 for the kidnapping and murder. To indicate it as Yara’s killer would be the trace of DNA on the girl’s body.
Mister Bossetti has always pleaded innocent.
In the case of Yara Gambirasio and Massimo Giuseppe Bossetti, some accounts do not add up.
The defense of the man sentenced to life imprisonment has not been given, nor is it yet granted, to repeat the DNA analysis.
That is, to verify whether the Absolute Truth proclaimed by the public prosecutor Letizia Ruggeri (and her consultants) and approved by the two Courts of Assizes, really has a scientific foundation.
Yet – the philosopher Karl Popper teaches us – research has no end.
According to Massimo Bossetti’s defense consultants, there are still abundant traces of DNA to be analyzed. And finds on which scientific investigations can be repeated.
Science is not a Divine Truth announced once and for all. Much less is the judicial truth. Yet they continue to tell us the lie that with DNA everything is resolved and we see God.
Science is debate, it is contradictory, it is confrontation. This is why I argue that the position of the judiciary – not only investigating but also judging – of the case of Yara Gambirasio and Massimo Bossetti has an anti-scientific position.
Yara, review and analysis of the movie
Here’s how Netflix presents the movie Yara, released on the streaming platform, spread all over the world, on Friday, November 5, 2021.
“A resolute prosecutor is fully dedicated to the case of a 13-year-old missing person and does everything to get to the truth. Based on a true story.”
Why does Netflix propose, in 2021, to viewers all over the world a film that tells only the version of the public prosecution and the judicial sentences of Bossetti’s conviction?
Why does the film Yara focus only on the figure of the prosecutor Letizia Ruggeri? Why do they make a film like Yara that says nothing more about the case?
Yara is a movie that does not show and thematize doubts, contradictions, arguments contrary to the truth proposed by the Bergamo Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Why was the position of Bossetti’s defense not represented, comparing it with that of the investigators?
How come the position of geneticists and DNA scholars who are critical of the judicial truth about Yara and Bossetti was not represented in the story?
The golden rule of a quality story is conflict. The main feature of an effective script is the series of twists.
If cinema is a story of conflicts, here we have the boredom of court papers.
I wouldn’t waste much time on the artistic and cinematic features of the thriller movie Yara. It is a modest product, a foregone task that any videomaker could write and make with his left foot.
The characterization of the characters – that is, real people transposed into the cinema – is more like a photo novel and a sober soap opera than a film with international diffusion.
The dubbing in English, French, German and Spanish is interesting. So interesting that the English version – which I wanted to hear in several places – is more effective in acting and tone of voice than the Italian one.
The same character of the prosecutor – the Heroine of the story – is somewhat drained. Not because of the actress, but because she doesn’t have an Antagonist worthy of the name.
He doesn’t even have an authoritative mentor. He has some allies and he has some fake enemies.
The heroine Letizia Ruggeri alone on the scene of the criminal case
Screenplay and direction did not make the Heroine Letizia Ruggeri collide with the Hero of a (apparently) lost cause such as Bossetti’s lawyer, Claudio Salvagni.
Both Salvagni and Yara’s parents – let it be said with respect – are little more than side figures; almost fake in their superficiality.
As for the hearing in the courtroom, the movie sounds like a provincial play and does not fascinate. Here too, there is no contradiction. There is no conflict. There is only the winning prosecutor.
The story touches and moves, especially a father like me (or a mother).
But in addition to the emotion, due to the very sad story of the girl Yara, the rhythm of the conflict, the credibility of the characters on stage and the humanity of the people involved was needed.
I have not caught human passion for Yara’s parents; for the widow of Giuseppe Guerinoni, for the whole family of Guerinoni; for Bossetti himself who found a train in front of him to overwhelm him.
Human passion is not justification. It is the will to tell, and even before understanding, the soul of who is in front of us, acts, suffers, loves, wins and loses in the sea of existence.
In the Netflix movie Yara we have only the prosecutor. Not even so credible in his torments; and even less credible in a battle where the true Antagonist – the uncomfortable Science – does not go on stage.
We do not have the fresco of a dramatic human and judicial case.
There are no doubts, but neither are the media in reporting crime and justice (and their circus). There is nothing of the rude dispute on social media, regarding the DNA test and Bossetti’s guilt.
In the movie Yara, on Netflix, we don’t have the world. We don’t have the context. We don’t have humanity; not even that of the very young victim. And this is disconcerting.
Stories from a single source and the role of cinema and media
I don’t know about you, but I’m fed up with movies and TV series, stories and one-way newspaper articles. Of narratives with a single source: the official one; or the one that cries out the most.
The role of the media – from journalists to filmmakers – is to render, with the language of the respective media, the complexity of reality.
They have the function of telling us about life in an effective way, pruning the story of useless elements; to bring to the fore what helps us understand this very complex world.
We as journalists have the news as a point of reference. Just as we have the inquiry and the investigation; and certainly the technique of involving and truthful storytelling.
A screenwriter and a director have the humanity of the characters, expressed in actions and dialogue. They have conflict as the engine of the story.
Filmmakers have a Hero – the Protagonist – who goes on a journey; and the journey makes sense if it is cornered by an Enemy, by credible obstacles, by real and deadly traps.
The movie Yara, a failure of fresco on our world
Cinema, then, like journalism, has the task of giving us a glimpse of humanity. To become a cartography of the existing and look at dark corners, hidden, concealed on purpose by some Power (human, divine or natural).
This I would have expected from the thriller film Yara, based on a true story and put on Netflix in Italian and in the most popular four other foreign languages. I didn’t find this in the movie Yara.
Yara Gambirasio (Italy, 2010) and Milena Sutter (Italy, 1971): two 13 years old gilrs
The case of Yara Gambirasio, 13 years old, who disappeared on November 26, 2010 in the province of Bergamo (Italy), and then found dead on February 26, 2011, has many points in common with the story of Milena Sutter, 13 years old, who disappeared on May 5. 1971 in Genoa (Italy) and found lifeless at sea on the following 20 May.
In this magazine we tell the story of Milena Sutter, which deserves to be deepened and told.
Also for the case of Milena Sutter, a man, Lorenzo Bozano (who died on 30 June 2021), who has always professed innocence, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975.
Read the article on the case of Milena Sutter:
Crime stories, the mystery of the girl Milena Sutter (13 y.o.)
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Maurizio Corte
corte.media