Capturing the Friedmans

On Long Island a teacher and his son are accused of sexually abusing children during computer classes held in their home. Throughout the process the family films itself: the fights, the crying, the arguments in the kitchen, all of it on home video. The film is not interested in whether the crime happened. It is interested in how testimony is produced: the statements in the investigation were obtained through interviews involving hypnosis and pressure, and the film sets those beside the family's own footage. Both sides end up inconsistent. The form rests directly on source material: home video, police records and present-day interviews. Andrew Jarecki vindicates nobody and leaves the audience without an answer. Its starting point was an entirely different subject. Jarecki was making a short film about clowns who work children's birthday parties in New York; one of them was David Friedman, and as the conversation went on his family's story emerged. The film won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary at Sundance in 2003 and was nominated for an Academy Award. Who it is for: viewers who like true crime documentary and films about the unreliability of memory. Who it is not for: anyone who needs a clear answer. The film will not say whether the abuse happened, and that uncertainty troubles some viewers.