Landscape Suicide

Landscape Suicide is a 1987 American crime and drama film directed and produced by James Benning.

The first half of the film is based on the murder of Kirsten Costas, who was stabbed by her high-school friend Bernadette Protti in Northern California in early 1984.

In a contemporary review, Chicago Tribune film critic Dave Kehr awarded the film three and a half stars and wrote: "It's part of Benning's project in Landscape Suicide to reclaim these deaths from the realm of popular fiction and place them again in a real world.

His method is, alternatively, both to refuse to look (the killings, made familiar and even banal by their endless cinematic representation, are not depicted) and to look harder than anyone else.

The prosperous California suburb is linked to the depressed Midwestern farm town through a shared sense of isolation, desolation and quiet despair.