Film
Documentary maker Andrew Jarecki first met David Friedman when he interviewed him for a movie he was making about children's party clowns. From this innocuous genesis Capturing the Friedmans became one of the most compelling and challenging documentaries of recent years. Jarecki learnt that in the 1980s David Friedman's father and brother had been imprisoned for horrifying child sex offences; and the ensuing breakdown of the family had been obsessively chronicled on home video by David himself. In the ominous opening to the film we see the Friedmans in their early home videos, and are introduced to an apparently wholesome and loving family in thrall to the camera and their own play-acting.
This veneer is shattered for both the family and the audience when it emerges that Arnold Friedman was a paedophile in possession of a vast collection of child pornography. Such revelations about a respected high school teacher and idolised father of three sons would have been sufficiently shocking, but the police soon unearthed even more sensational allegations. Arnold Friedman and his son Jesse were both charged with hundreds of counts of indecent assault against children they had taught in computer classes at their home in Long Island.
Jarecki is adept in forcing us to continually shift our perspective on these events, as he objectively presents us with people who all offer wildly varying versions of the 'truth'. It is easy to feel extremely disorientated as each member of the family comes across as utterly convincing at some points, and then later appears completely delusional. There is no such thing as incontrovertible proof in this documentary; the convictions were entirely based upon the children's testimonies and no physical evidence at all. It emerges that these so-called confessions were often extracted from the children after the police had employed highly suspect interviewing techniques such as hypnosis. The testimonies of the ex-police officers and former students featured in the documentary seem to point towards a gross miscarriage of justice, at least in Jesse's case. The exploration of the hysteria which paedophilia generates in communities is fascinating, and these wider social consequences are skilfully juxtaposed with the Friedmans' personal tragedy. Although the film risks becoming over-long it is this pathos which renders Capturing the Friedmans such compelling, if uncomfortable, viewing.
John Furse, who visited the Phoenix Picturehouse on Sunday, was deeply affected by the story of John McCarthy and Brian Keenan's four-and-a-half year captivity in Lebanon after spending a "fascinating" six weeks in isolation with Keenan on the west coast of Ireland in 1991; the result of this was a roughly drafted screenplay, which soon met with both of the men's approval. Instead of exploring the social and political context of the kidnappings, he was most intrigued by what he termed "the world of feelings". McCarthy and Keenan were held together in unbearable confinement and subjected to mental and physical abuse. Furse was intent upon demonstrating how such a transformative experience stripped them of their "male character armour," leading to a level of emotional honesty which would have been unattainable under less extreme conditions. Due to the sheer monotony of the men's ordeal, Blind Flight can sometimes veer dangerously close to tedium. Furse pointed out that some of his more elaborate plans were curbed by budgetary constraints; however, the strong performances of the two lead actors, Ian Hart and Linus Roache, lend the film real emotional resonance. The developing bond between the two captives is charted, moving from an initial distrust to total reliance upon one another; Keenan even referred to McCarthy as his "soulmate" after his release. If the film is not perfectly executed, at its core there is a compelling exploration of how extraordinary human relationships can be born from the most desperate circumstances.
22nd Apr 2004