I saw Capturing the Friedmans last night. I was disappointed, I found it rather dull. I've always been interested by things like the McMartin case, and the Dale Akiki case (San Diego's equivalent, except he more-or-less got his good name back), and thought this case, with the unsympathetic accused (he is assuredly guilty of, at the very least, child pornography), would raise even more issues, by virtue of the murky moral standing of the accused. But what really interested me was the notion that one of the sons had chosen to film home movies while his family disintegrated, and now we could watch these movies ourselves, and grapple with the issues raised in seeing things we probably really have no right to see.

But the home movies are a relatively small part of the film, which is by-and-large a traditional crime documentary, hindered, in my opinion, by the guilt of the supposed victims of injustice. The father is a pedophile, and if you can believe his son's rather sleazy lawyer (who apparently doesn't get too caught up in matters like attorney-client priviledge), seems almost certainly guilty of molesting children. So how worked up can you get over police misconduct, which almost certainly led to an overstatement of the magnitude of the crimes committed, but which, I believe, is based in truth? It may shock me to hear a judge say, paraphrasing, "I knew they were guilty all along," but really, who could blame her?

The film worked better when it dealt with the family's destruction, and the notion of privacy. Hearing David say in his video diary, that it is private, and if we are not him, we shouldn't be watching it, is unsettling when you've paid your money and are settling in to peep into his private life. But we still watch. And that's the most interesting aspect of the film; unfortunately, the speculation as to the subjects' guilt, and whether we can ever know for sure either way, distracts from this aspect of the film.

I enjoyed, as ever, Stuart Klawans' review in The Nation. (I subscribe pretty much exclusively for his reviews) He observes that the film calls for commentary on two fronts: are the Friedmans guilty, and also, "what degrees of violation are involved in using child pornography; following the TV news coverage of a juicy indictment; keeping a camera trained at all times on the members of your family; paying ten bucks to sit in a theater and gape at someone else's family breakdown. To its credit, Capturing the Friedmans urges the latter question on its audience." I also agreed with him that the film has an agenda, despite the insistant claims to the contrary. He writes, "I believe the filmmakers have every right to take sides this way. In fact, I admire the subtle persuasiveness with which they've done so. But I'm also intrigued that so many people deny it's being done." I would speculate that most viewers view the presence of vast amounts of incriminating evidence as counterbalancing an obvious empathy for the family; the strong suspicion of guilt, which the filmmakers cannot (and do not try) to eliminate, conveys a sense of even-handedness in a sympathetic portrayal of the family.

Where I disagree with Klawans would be in his observation that the film's title could have a third meaning, beyond the arrest of the Friedman's and their capture on celluloid: "Capturing the Friedmans quietly convinces us that we, as viewers, may now own the truth--which makes us superior to the cops, the lawyers, the judge and the TV reporters....So the title has a third meaning, as the boast of a satisfied audience." To the contrary, I left the theater feeling a touch of despair, having been reminded how often the truth is unknowable. My contention, as I have said, is that some form of molestation took place (Naked leapfrog? Probably not. But just because the police fumbled the investigation--and probably traumatized some children for life--doesn't mean nothing happened). But I'll never know, and unfortunately no amount of access to home movies and audio cassettes and other things I don't really have a right to access will change that.