‘The Flores Massacre’ HBO Max Review: Matías Bagnato’s Long Road Out of Fear Lifts Juan José Campanella’s Docuseries Above the Genre

The saga told in The Flores Massacre, the three-part documentary series produced by Juan José Campanella about the crime that took place on February 17, 1994, and claimed the lives of five people, can be divided into two distinct parts, or stages. The first deals with the crime itself, and is closer to a traditional true crime documentary, reconstructing the arson attack on the Bagnato family home that killed every member of the family (as well as a family friend), leaving only one survivor: Matías, who was a teenager at the time. The second is more interesting, focusing on the unusual ordeal the survivor endured after learning that the killer could once again threaten his life at any moment.

More than one and a half episodes of the series, directed by Augusto Tejada, are devoted to the crime itself. Through the testimony of Matías, several family members, his former nanny and lawyers involved in the case, we learn about the Bagnatos’ life and how a relative of his mother, Fructuoso Alvarez González, enters the picture. An unpaid debt leads to disagreements, intimidation and pressure, eventually culminating in the fateful night when the family’s home in the Flores neighborhood was set on fire. The series lays out the details, forensic evidence and mechanics of the crime in a narrative with few surprises or twists, since the case itself doesn’t have many hidden turns or unexplored areas beyond those that are already evident or well known. Or, if there are any, they aren’t revealed here.

Things become more intriguing once the case is solved. I won’t spoil what happens here, so you can discover the twists for yourself, but the truth is that Matías’s ordeal didn’t end with either the crime or the conviction. His fear continued for many more years, fueled by the lingering possibility —and, at times, explicit threats— that the killer or someone close to him might try to «finish the job». The second half of the series focuses on this, as well as on the way Matías tries to rebuild his life following a number of personal changes, his growing public profile and, especially, his ongoing relationship with his former nanny and his grandmother Norma, a remarkable character in her own right.

This is where The Flores Massacre sets itself apart. Most true crime stories are concerned with solving a crime, and once the legal process is over, it often seems that the survivors’ lives gradually begin to recover, with the psychological wounds being the main ones that need to heal. All of that is present here, too, but Matías’s recovery is constantly interrupted by his sense of insecurity. He can never quite take that final step toward a new life.

Beyond that, the series addresses the shortcomings of the Argentine justice system, the difficult circumstances that relatives of victims often have to endure in cases like this, and the role played by the media throughout it all. Ultimately, The Flores Massacre is Matías’s story. Interviewed by Campanella —with whom he appears to have had a friendship predating the making of the series— he recounts, analyzes and reflects on his own difficult history, one that only now, more than thirty years after the crime, is finally beginning to turn the page and move into a new chapter.