Important Fact:
Release Dates : 8 September, 2023
Running Time : 1 Hour 20 Minutes
Genre : Documentaries, Crime Movies, Courtroom Movies
Language: English
OTT Platform: Netflix
Rosa Peral’s Tapes Ratings & Review:
- latestmoviesreview Rating : (1.7/5)
- IMDb Rating : (5.1/10)
Directed By : Carles Vidal Novellas, Manuel Pérez Cáceres, Carlos Agulló
Produced By : Carlos Agulló, Xavier Resina
Music By : Sergio Jiménez, Lacima
Star Cast : Elias Argentiere, Xavier Bartoli, Cloe Forts
Synopsis :
In this true-crime documentary, Rosa Peral gives her first jail interview after she was found guilty of murdering her partner with the help of an ex-lover.
ROSA PERAL’S TAPES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Peral is unapologetic about her trial being a “lynching,” and she appears to enjoy the thought that this documentary will “let (her)self be known” to everyone. She communicates via video chat from behind bars, where she is serving a 25-year prison term for killing her lover Pedro Rodriguez. Rodriguez was allegedly drugged and killed by her and her other lover, Albert Lopez, who then put his body in a car trunk, doused it in gasoline, and set it on fire to destroy the evidence. Lopez and Peral each claimed the other was the primary offender during the trial; nonetheless, both of them were named by the prosecution.
An intriguing twist? Within the Guardia Urbana police department, Peral and Rodriguez worked together. Cut to a number of TV news pieces that range from straightforward reporting to very absurd gossip-mongering that could be referred to as “journalism” only in the loosest, most charitable sense; this contributed to the media soap opera that surrounds the case. One of those journalists claims he is unsure of Peral’s guilt or innocence but is certain that her conviction was unfair. Other journalists openly acknowledge that their commentary and coverage of the trial were unethical.
Why? Because there was insufficient evidence to convict Peral, the prosecution attacked her persona by portraying her as a cunning con artist who slept with multiple people. One of the prosecutors calls her a “anti-monogamous pathology,” and the movie cuts to a montage of trial witnesses being directly asked if they had ever slept with Peral. The message and call logs on her cell phone were also used by the prosecution to piece together a number of presumptions into a theory that she and Lopez planned the murder. It’s odd material, deserving of thorough investigation and perhaps even a documentary takedown.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Netflix frequently produces true crime documentaries alongside fictional dramatizations; examples include Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, Capturing the Killer Nurse, and The Good Nurse.
Performance Worth Watching: In an honest admission, journalist Carlos Quilez claims that some of the articles his publication published on Peral were “shameful.”
Memorable Dialogue: The exploitative media hysteria surrounding this murder-love-triangle case is best summed up by Quilez: “We could dive right in because all the tasty ingredients were there.”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take:Unfortunately, this takedown is a flimsy attempt to deal with a tricky and contentious issue. It probably helps to already be aware of this peculiar scenario before starting Rosa Peral’s Tapes. The plot of the movie is strangely erratic and nonlinear, breaking up the timeline of events into a tangle and asking us to fit it all together. It repeatedly jumps back and forth between incidents from 2017, 2020, and the present. Maybe it works if you lean in close, look at the screen extremely attentively, and take notes, but isn’t the goal of most true crime films to find meaning in the midst of chaos? The fact that I was left with no clear understanding of what actually transpired on the awful night of May 1, 2017, after finishing the movie, suggests that it may work better for familiars as an addition to previously published information.
However, hearing Peral make her case is remarkable because, while claiming to be wrongly detained, she rarely comes across as self-righteous or trying to incite indignation. Instead, she portrays herself as confident in her version of the reality. She comes across as more trustworthy than the prosecutors, who come across as haughty and a little defensive, and the reporters, who look back on their graphic stories and commentary with regret or an unapologetic shrug.
These voices highlight some of the story’s complex subtext, which touches on sexism and misogyny, sensationalism, and structural problems with the police and justice system. The implication is that a man in Peral’s position would have most likely received different treatment in court and in the media. However, the documentary’s needlessly convoluted structure detracts from its more important themes. For instance, Peral’s defense lawyer discusses how the prosecution equates committing a sin with committing a crime, a point that is lost in the narrative’s curly-cues. Peral seems to have important points to convey, but the disjointed story ensures that they are never properly driven home.
Our Call: SKIP IT. Rosa Peral’s Tapes is an intriguing story, but it is too tedious to watch.