While presented in fictional mysteries, cases of disappearances are engrossing pieces of stimulating suspense, but in real life, a case like that of Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi is far from the sensationalized portrayal we often encounter on our screens. Her mysterious disappearance in June 1983 has been the most troubling aspect of her family’s life, which is still debarred from any concrete closure on the matter.
Written and directed by Mark Lewis, the four-part series released on Netflix on October 20, 2022, presents Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela’s brother, and Andrea Purgatori, the lead journalist on the case, as the prime narrators of the real-life story. Both of them have tirelessly spent almost the entire course of their lives unearthing the truth of the 15-year-old girl’s mystery.
Netflix’s synopsis of the limited series reads:
June 22, 1983. A girl walks home alone from a music lesson and never makes it. For decades, the world has wondered: What happened to Emanuela Orlandi?
–Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi Contains Mild Spoilers-
Yet to be resolved, this is one of the most disturbing cases emerging from the Vatican to date. And no one can affirm the sentiment more than the concerned party’s family in such cases. Orlandi’s sisters, brother, journalists on the case, an anonymous friend, and more sit down to present their own stories of dealing with their loved one’s loss and their own versions of pieces of the puzzle, each of which point in the same direction – the Vatican.
The first episode of the docuseries already announces the case to be a derivative of the pages from a Dan Brown novel. However, the severity of it can neither be fathomed nor be relayed by simply reducing its similarity to a piece of fiction. Although it’s meant to be a documentary, the director’s vision stylistically captures the streets of Rome, almost as if paying homage to it. Coming back to the more personal ground, flashbacks in the form of old films on tape and other artifice accentuate the haunting aura of the past circumstances and the overall series’ presentation. This, at times, can lead the audience astray in believing that what they’re viewing is a cinematic fictitious remembrance of a thriller, when it’s not.
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The reimagining of events, the incessant pressurizing ticking of clocks, speeding images, and old films heighten the urgency of the investigation but sometimes they appear dramatic more than is necessary. Despite that, the series is able to convey the picture of the transformation of a ‘simple case of abduction’ into a matter of national concern, hinting that power politics will always outweigh the innocent lives of the common public. The disheartening feeling of being made to exist as mere pawns in the hands of others is represented as is. However, there are too many distractions in the path as well.
A huge chunk of information is relayed to the viewers, especially in episode 2, switching the story’s nature from a personal grieving matter to interrogative jargon. It’s already hard to keep up with the multiple initial suspects like the KGB, the mafia working against the Vatican, and others. On top of that, these intricate details again take away the agency of the personalized narratives, while also disinteresting the audience.
The drastically changed trajectory pushes her case of disappearance as an afterthought by slipping into the various conspiracies that became linked to the investigation back then. The amount of time and detail paid into envisioning it all pulls away from the focus, much like the family members weren’t left with anything to grasp.
While it does play a role in building up the same confusing chaos and in a way also depicting the desperation of solving a case, especially when more than one piece of evidence leading up to the answer. However, the series could’ve easily been done without that particular sequence as well because ultimately it is the most forgettable bit of the story too.
Vatican Girl The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi: Final Thoughts
Moving on to the power play introduced therein, it brings up the accurate portrayal of common people as pawns with the title itself proving the point. When it comes to such cases that concern the national perspective, people tend to lose their subjective identities, they’re simply reduced to being victims of these crimes, just like our focus shifts to the ‘Vatican Girl’ before taking Emanuela into count. It further resembles how the act of finding her was pushed to the sidelines because the mafia’s conspiracy against the Vatican takes the front seat. Carol Hanisch’s quote “The Personal is Political” (though written in a different context) stands true because while everything has the chance of becoming political, politics itself will never lets the ‘personal’ account to lead the picture.
The audience may at times give into the theatrics of the presentation but we must not forget that this is a story of someone’s true and authentic grief and loss. It seems that the series is more interested in divulging a mysterious plot (even though it is at its base). It most importantly has real emotional and traumatic gravitas, something which loses focus as soon as theatrical artifice takes control.
Even the family members themselves believe that such theatrics shouldn’t be stealing the paramount issue’s light and at one point even the series admits that the pre-told distracting accounts were nothing but “smoke”. Yet, they consume our time, taking away from the humane focus. The heart of the story and affection – being Emanuela’s mother – is left out for the last episode, once again reducing her to a mere shrewd jab at staged dramatization of their emotions.
Most of the particularities could’ve easily been kept out, with the duration of the series instead paying more attention to the absolute and simple-most explanation that is revealed at the end. Now, it’s like we’ve got all this information about the mafia ties, even though we wanted to spend more time on probably considering how the girl herself was a “sacrificial lamb” and along with that, her family too sacrificed their entire lives unearthing the reality of that ruinous night. They neither have a hold over their past nor their current existences, and that’s the profound verity that should’ve been the prime focus at best.
Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi is now streaming on Netflix.
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You review of the Vatica Girl documentary is horrible. You don’t have any empathy for the Orlandi family.
All I wanted was for them to be at the focus of the story that is theirs to tell first and foremost. How does that lack empathy? Just a genuine question, please let me know.
The Catholic Church has to be the richest organisation in the world! Leaching off poor poverty stricken people worldwide! Disgusting! Living in super wealth ! I would be willing and more than happy to sign a petition supporting the Orlandi family! POWER OF THE PEOPLE needed here! TRUTH MUST BE KNOWN!