Review of Beyond Hatred (2004) by Sarah G — 06 Aug 2009

In 2002, Francois Chenu, was savagely beaten and drowned by a group of skinheads for being homosexual. Two years later the central three men involved in the crime come up for trial. The filmmakers focus mainly on Chenu's family, trying to give a portrait of their loss and their attempts to comprehend the crime, in the period leading up to, during and after the trial.

This film left me with the feeling of something deeply lacking, I wanted more. We are given very little sense of who Francois was, and of what his life was like. There was an attempt to explore why these three commited the crime but it's not enough. The interview with the father of one of the perpetrators is short and consists mostly of long pauses, we are told via an aunt that the same accused's mother is an alcoholic, that's about as deep as it gets. The filmmakers clearly try to maintain an atmosphere of non-interference and neutrality but all we are left with as viewers is fustration and a feeling of being hardly wiser for the experience.