Capturing The Friedmans Reviews

I got to know about this documentary just a few months ago thanks to a professor and finally got around to watch it some days ago after I finished Shoah.

It's a bit hard to say something about it because the other review covers it pretty well, but basically what you have here is an alleged case of pedophilia, and the documentary does a very good job in showing multiple different testimonies and perspectives from the accused, the rest of their family, the supposed victims, policemen in charge of the case at the time, judges, lawyers, and more implied, and each one of them intertwined with something said by someone else, whether complimentary or against the previous declaration, widening and improving the coverage of the matter at hand, while also not doing it too fast so it doesn't seem like one answer is cut short in favor of the other.

Another good thing is that the interviewer, whoever that may be, points out and asks for the contradictions present on the answers of the interviewed, or asks about something said by someone else, or present in the documents of the case.

These two factors are important to keep the presentation of such a heavy subject as neutral and unbiased as possible, so it's a major plus.

The whole documentary is made in a way that it's never fully clear if the accused were guilty or not, which along with the previous points, adds in letting the viewers decide on their own, proof of which is the debates over the true behind the case that continues even to this day.

The presentation is pretty good as well, combining the interviews with footage from the time the case took place and even videos from the affected family itself. Even more than that, let me talk about what I consider to be the best two aspects of the directing.

There is a sequence in the beginning when the youngest son is talking about his father as a famous figure, shown through a wide shot, but then as soon as he says something along the lines of "but then him as a husband and wife...had things that I rather not talk about", and the camera zooms directly on his face as he talks, while also cutting away at the right moment to not come off as emotional manipulation.

The other aspect is the name of the documentary itself, which combined with its beginning makes you think that it means that it's going to "show" the family that it's mentioned in the title, but as soon as the conflict presents itself and charges of pedophilia are involved, "capturing" just acquires another meaning, and even makes you rethink the whole sequence I referred to earlier (unless of course you knew about the case beforehand already, of which I didn't). Very good way to introduce the topic and conflict and subvert the initial expectations.

The aspects that aren't good about it is how sometimes videos of the family fooling around even right before the trial are shown, taking away a bit of seriousness of the whole thing. I mean, the family was screwed, it's easy to notice that, but the director could have excluded those bits.

Another bad aspect is the music, deliberately chose to come off as super sad and emotionally manipulative, something which I'm against.

And then, I saw on YouTube somebody pointing out that a major confession done by one of the accused, the older son, is not present in the documentary for the sake of making it seem ambiguous and neutral, despite him confessing everything, and apparently more important evidence was left out as well, which is a shame.

Despite those few but very important negative aspects, it's a very well put together documentary and I'm glad I got to know about it and watch it. It's very worth a watch when you want some real, serious and at best bittersweet content.

I came across this documentary while watching a talk-show where a Dutch actress was mentioning some very interesting movies and this movie was one of those she chose to talk about. Eventually, it is a very peculiar and interesting documentary dealing with a rather unsettling subject. The interesting approach is that the makers used their own footage but also had unlimited access to the Friedmans own home videos which is really surprising that the Friedmans would allow this, especially considering the controversial nature of this documentary. The other interesting thing is how neutral they managed to keep the whole thing. Eventually, it is some pretty heavy stuff since you see this family basically melting down and you are never sure if they actually deserve it or not. It works also as a cautionary tale. I mean, can you imagine how many unaware kids get back home and tell their parents ‘My teacher told me to touch his penis’ when, in fact, nothing happened but the kid is just pissed off with the guy. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t take such accusations seriously but such false accusations can and have ruined many innocent lives before. I mean, there is today such an hysteria, such an obsession about pedophilia and people seem to forget that it has always been there ever since men has discovered they could have sex. It used to be taboo and nobody would talk about it but nowadays, it is everywhere and people are scared to leave their kids with their teacher, with their sport instructors, with their neighbors, even with their own kin and I’m not so sure if it is really an improvement. Anyway, let’s get back to this movie. Even though I think it was pretty good, I still think there was still one major flaw though. Indeed, even though we are never sure if Arnold Friedman did molest those children or not, the fact remains that the guy is a pedophile since he had this huge stash of pedophile magazines hidden in his house. Surprisingly, it is actually never mentioned by his sons and wife during the whole thing and instead they keep focusing on the molesting charges, which were false according to them. I mean, if I would discover that my dad would have such magazines in his house, I would probably drop him and never see him again for the rest of my life. So, maybe the guy was innocent from touching those kids, but he sure was a sick pervert and that aspect was really undermined during the whole thing. Still, it remains a very distressing documentary and it is definitely worth a look, if you are up to it because it is honestly rather depressing.