Trailer for the docuseries Missing: Dead or Alive (Netflix)
In the endless wandering through streaming libraries, each of us has a word or words that make us stop and press play. Sometimes it's the name of an actor or creator, sometimes it's a genre (hey, docu-crime) and sometimes it's just a subject that automatically turns on the synapses in the brain. For me, these are missing persons – people who were here only a second ago and a moment later lost contact with them without a logical explanation.
Many times I have tried to find an answer to why this topic concerns me so much. Fortunately, I have no history of missing persons in my immediate vicinity. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was ten years old when the girl Adi Yaakobi disappeared from King George Street in Tel Aviv and has not been found to this day. A story that left me and an entire generation of children traumatized (perhaps positively) from hitchhiking. In any case, the speed at which I pressed play when I came across Missing: Dead or Alive on Netflix was almost involuntary. The new crime docuseries, directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Alexander Irwin Cox, traces a missing persons unit. The unit's team is actually engaged in detectives and tries to gather clues that will help them find the missing person, whether alive or dead.
"Missing" has only four chapters, but they are dense and manage to weave quite a few stories into them. Contrary to what can be understood from its name, the real heroes of the series, or rather the heroines, are the police officers who lead the unit. The four cases presented in the series – some shown over the course of one episode, others lasting longer – range from a woman who disappears after a dispute with her shell-shocked son, a father looking for his daughter who was kidnapped by her mother, and a man who goes to cash out lottery winnings and is never seen again.
There is no doubt that the main interest lies in these affairs and in the very human desire to know what happened to them, but those responsible for making the investigations accessible to viewers play an equally important role. Captain Heidi Jackson and investigating officer Vicki Raines are two experienced and sensitive women who work in a field that many would prefer to avoid. Each of them has their own complex family history that led them to choose this role, and as with any good series, we discover these stories on the go.
Experienced and sensitive. Vicki Raines, "Missing: A Question of Life or Death" (Photo: Netflix)
Complex family history. Heidi Jackson, "Missing: A Question of Life or Death" (Photo: Netflix)
"Missing" tries and usually manages to be a sweeping docu-crime but also a narrative series with strong main characters whose safety we fear for and wonder what happens to them after the episode ends. If what you're missing in docucrime is emotional connection, you'll find it here in abundance. In many ways, "Missing: A Question of Life or Death" dances about two weddings (or perhaps funerals) with great success.
On the one hand, the stories of the missing and their families that she brings to the screen are full of nuances that might have been lost in a scripted series. Irwin Cox did well to follow a team that operates in a very specific area of South Carolina rather than New York or Chicago, for example. The variety of characters and stories is much richer than what we usually get to see on shows that introduce us to "The Other America." Take the case of David, the man who lived with his family in a trailer and disappeared on his way to cash out a ten thousand dollar prize he won with a scratch card. Despite the familiar characteristics of simplicity and poverty, family members receive deep and sensitive documentation that manages to raise them above the stereotype level and arouse in us, the viewers, a great deal of concern for their well-being.
On the other hand, if one of the things that makes it difficult for you to connect with true-crime series are the production values, which often include 'amateur' footage taken from a hidden camera or long minutes of talking heads, Missing Persons provides an experience akin to watching a feature series. The episodes of the series are filled with beautiful, in-depth shots that immerse viewers in the semi-rural atmosphere of South Carolina (and thanks to the drone) as well as close documentation of the unit's female officers accompanying them not only during their work time but also in their free time, kayaking, meeting with board game friends or visiting church. If the goal was to create an emotional connection to the characters, one that would make us interested in them beyond the mystery of that episode, it worked. The story of Vicki Raines, the cop who leads most of the episodes, manages to be just as interesting as those of the missing people she's looking for.
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Lined with beautiful shots. "Missing: A Question of Life or Death" (Photo: Netflix)
This dramatization does not come without a price. Since its premiere last week, "Missing" ranks high on Netflix for the most-watched content around the world, but it has also drawn quite a few reviews from viewers who question its authenticity. Yes, even relative to the genre. Specific scenes particularly turned viewers on, including arriving at the scene where a body was found and checking the area without gloves and protective measures as required from a crime scene. Or another scene in which the crew first (allegedly) arrives at an abandoned home of a missing woman and enters it more easily when the entire scene looks like it was arranged in advance for the film crew. The scenes in question do feel too produced (or not enough, as in the case of the scene with the corpse), but they don't detract from the enjoyment of the series. Maximum reminders to those who need it that at the end of the day it's still TV, and that behind the camera is a much larger crew than the one we see on screen.
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