Review of Capturing the Friedmans (2003) by Js S — 14 Apr 2004

[color=#000000][font=Times New Roman][b][u]Capturing the Friedmans[/u][/b] [/font][/color].

[font=Times New Roman][color=yellow]Capturing the Friedmans is hands down the best documentary of the year and will surely take home the Academy Award. Unlike last years best documentary feature winner this is a true story and a scary one at that. 1st time director Andrew Jarecki set out originally to make a documentary concerning Party Clowns. Jarecki contacted David Friedman who at the time was known as New Yorks #1 party clown. After filming David and interviewing him a little Jarecki discovered that David?s family was involved in shocking events that were well publicized in the late 1980?s. David?s father Arnold and younger Brother Jesse had been arrested on Thanksgiving 1987 and charged with multiple counts of child pornography and child molestation. Jarecki turned his attention on to this subject and soon David allowed Jarecki access to the family home videos. This family videotaped everything, ranging from early footage of newlyweds Arnold and Elaine Friedman on the beach, right up to capturing the family?s last night together before Arnold is sent to prison. David had recently bought a video camera around the time the charges against his father and brother were made and so he videotaped much of what followed during the investigation l and trial. In a present day interview he states he did it so he could have the events documented without having to remember them. The film shows us this family completely self destruct, turning on each other and everyone around them. Extensive interviews with the family, investigators, lawyers, victims, victims parents, and other members of the community give us more information about the case than we could ever want. Though after we have been provided with all of this information from all sides of the case the only thing that is clear is the fact that truth itself is elusive. Watching Arnold Friedman at home with his family I?m not sure even he knows the whole truth about what happened. What makes this film so disturbing is the picture it paints of Arnold Friedman. It portrays him as father, pedophile, victim, monster, and in the end human. It takes what is normally a villain, an inhuman beast you should fear and turns it into a person. A person with weaknesses and vulnerabilities. At one point in the movie it is discussed that as a child Arnold was exposed to the bizarre sexual habits of his mother and even at 13, molested his younger brother. Later Jessie admits to taking part in the molestation of children with Arnold but states his own father molested him at a young age, twisting his views of right and wrong. Before the film is over Jessie denies this statement and says he only said those things under the advice of his lawyer and mother in the hopes of getting a lighter sentence. If Jessie was molested by his father, and his father witnessed his own mother having sex with strange men night after night then these two villains have also become victims. This is easily the most powerful film of the year and the most probing documentary of the century so far. You almost feel while watching this that you are seeing something you are not supposed to see. It?s like stumbling onto a diary containing horrible secrets and while you just want to put it down, you know you can not stop reading it.[/color][/font].