As sexy and intriguing as Rosa Peral’s case sounds, this documentary suggests that it’s just another instance of the public’s wild if harmful imagination. Both the media and prosecutors made Peral out to be a promiscuous woman out for blood, with tabloids calling her a “go-go dancer” and a “stripper,” despite being neither, and public officials recalling her sexual activities in court, despite their irrelevance to the case. Via a phone call from prison, Peral debunks these claims and tries her best to reclaim the narrative. It’s the first interview she’s given since being convicted for 25 years in 2020, and in a finely balanced move, the filmmakers contrast her impassioned testimony with interviews they’ve conducted with Peral’s critics and prosecutors, thus giving us enough to deliberate among the two sides. If the documentary ever seems biased towards Peral, it’s clear that it’s only to offset the weirdly strong vitriol she’s received among the Spanish public.
Synopsis
This true-crime documentary film features Rosa Peral's first interview from prison since she was convicted of murdering her partner aided by an ex-lover.
Storyline
Rosa Peral, a woman accused of colluding with her ex-lover to kill her husband, tells all about the infamous Spanish case that led to her 25-year prison sentence.
TLDR
I am somehow both infuriated and unsurprised at how this trial is massively skewed against the female suspect.
What stands out
Interestingly enough, a huge chunk of Peral’s critics are journalists. And even more shocking is how unapologetically biased many of them are. The filmmakers did well to interview them for this documentary, seeing as they played a big role in crafting Peral’s image to the public eye, and it was a relief to see at least one admit fault. “I am ashamed of what I wrote then,” one of them says, but it is baffling and infuriating that there aren’t more like him.
