Into the Deep

"Into the Deep" is basically a documentary about someone filming a documentary only to find out that the subject of their documentary is not at all what they seem. It's a true story, and as it unfolded in the film, I realized I had vague memories of reading about the events in the news but never heard how it all played out. The way this documentary is structured and paced, incrementally revealing more and more about what happened, kept me enthralled but simultaneously disturbed. Whoever cut this thing together knew just where to place some of the most bizarrely incriminating film footage that was shot when everyone thought they were just making a nice little film about an eccentric inventor with dreams of glory, as opposed to unwittingly documenting a narrative that is more suited to a Hitchcock film or maybe a Stephen King novel.

I had never heard of this story beforehand, but it was a really well put together documentary. It literally takes you down the road from a seemingly eccentric guy who's actually done a "TED Talks" episode on his adventures, to a well and truly snapped person. There are a few characters who recall in hindsight some startlingly strange conversations and text messages on the days leading up to the event and there is guilt felt from a few, but there's no way in hell they could have imagined in their wildest dreams that this crime would go down. I cannot imagine how scared the reporter Kim Wall must have felt when the s#*t hit the fan.

I was broadly familiar with this murder, having been aware of it at the time it occurred. I wasn't aware of this documentary but someone mentioned it was on Netflix and worth watching, so I did.

Its an amazing coincidence (or not? - when did he know he would commit a crime, was he leaving easter eggs for the audience - it is weird) that there was a film crew in tow following Madsen right up until the day of the murder.

It was good in the sense that it showed how creepy Madsen was, hiding in plain sight, basically telling people what he was and what he was going to do, and no one noticed. It also showed the impact of his crime on all his interns and collaborators, who had recognised he was eccentric but had trust in him in terms of delivery of their project.

I understand that some of the people in the film were not happy about the final product and some voices and faces may have been changed using AI. I am really confused about that, the woman whose face is supposedly different just looks like she has a soft filter on, so I am not sure if her face is completely different or that slight blurriness is the effect. I'd actually be half tempted to google her to find out what she looks like to understand the nature of the special effect they have used, which probably defeats the object of them altering her appearance.

What was lacking was information about Kim Wall, there was barely anything, not even really proper photos, she is the victim, I would like to know a bit more about her. Also we never saw what the inside of the submarine was like.

Also, though some might not agree, for completion, I would like to know what they think happened on that submarine, a timeline of events, but there was nothing. He clearly just planned to get any female on there and kill them, and he basically told the girl who may have been his intended victim, that he had a plan, I would like to know, what happened. Did he drug her to incapacitate her? I don't know and when it comes to keeping safe from evil, it is useful to understand their methods. The actual event was not much of a feature of this documentary, it was just before and then briefly after and some reporting of the court case.

I feel like this documentary prompts more questions than it answers for a viewer who broadly knew of the murder but doesn't know all the details.

This is a chilling exposé of a sociopath at work. In every frame of this absorbing documentary you cannot help but question the real motives of everything Peter Madsen says and does. Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing and you really feel empathy for the cast of characters caught up in his web of deceit.

The producers and director do a great job weaving the characters (effectively innocent bystanders) to the main plot. The director also manages to ratchet up the tension as we get nearer and nearer to the already known, but still feared, denouement.

This is a great piece of documentary work by the same producers who gave us the equally absorbing Amanda Knox story.

This is not the first time that I see a crime show or documentary about the "submarine murder" done by Peter Madsen.

The dramatization in the 5-part "The Investigation", made me first aware of the events that happened. And I should say that it is far superior to this documentary that is just released by Netflix.

This documentary misses a lot of the events that were instrumental in the complete story. Events like either the extremely difficult task to lift the boat from the seabed or the mindboggling search for the body-parts using blood hounds from another country were not even covered in this documentary. And it is exactly these unlikely events that make this murder case unique.

I therefore recommend that you instead watch the above-mentioned crime show "The Investigation". You will be way more informed of what really happened.

All-in-all, I could therefore not really be surprised by this newly released documentary on Netflix. Although it is a decent documentary, I got the impression that during the last 30 minutes much "filler-material" was used to get to a 1.5 hour target duration. Especially the scenes of a woman with curly red hair - a volunteer that worked for Madsen - were totally out-of-place. She was suggesting that it must have been her that was the original target of Madsen, thereby putting all focus on herself instead of the real victim. I found that a bit disrespectful.

I should note that this documentary peeked my interest more towards the space-race between Madsen's rocket company and the neigbouring "Copenhagen Suborbitals". The story between those two companies was the most interesting of the complete documentary.

In the end I would rate this documentary with 5.6 stars, which I round up to 6 stars.