When
Michael Moore embarked on a documentary about the closing
of the General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, his quest
became a live drama on film in Roger & Me
(1990). Similarly, Christian Bauer decided in 2000 to film
his investigation of the disappearance of Allen Ross, his
collaborator in seven documentaries over as many years, and
the result is Missing Allen, a blend of documentary
and drama with voiceovers from Bauer and interviews of those
whom he questioned to get to the truth. After Bauer and Ross
finished the documentary Ol' Man River: A Trip Down
the Mississippi (1996) for German television in the
fall of 1995, Bauer returned to Germany but soon lost contact
with Ross. Curious about the disappearance, Bauer went to
the United States to solve a mystery that soon emerged as
a series of mysteries. For the police, Ross was missing and
presumed dead; after a desultory investigation in February
1996, the case was closed. Bauer's efforts in 2000, hence,
served to reopen the case. In 1993, Ross married Linda Greene,
a leader of a cult in Guthrie, Oklahoma, called the Samaritan
Foundation, and in 1995 the couple moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Ross was deeply troubled about the lack of spirituality in
the world, but nevertheless made the seventh documentary with
Bauer. Afterward, Ross returned to Cheyenne and disappeared.
Bauer interviews several close friends, including Ross's father
in Naperville, Illinois, and the houses in Guthrie and Cheyenne
where Ross lived. Hints of Ross's ties with David Koresh and
Timothy McVeigh come to light. The trail of evidence at the
various homesites alerted Bauer to the possibility that strange
practices of the Linda's cult caught up with Ross, whom the
police ultimately found buried in the cellar of the Cheyenne
house with a bullet in his head and his sexual organs removed,
presumably a victim of a ritual for exorcising vampires. Although
Linda and her former husband Denis Greene have pointed the
finger at each other for committing the murder, the case remains
unsolved. Apart from the true story, Missing Allen
provides instruction on how to trace missing persons, and
the quest is even more fascinating than the puzzle. MH
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