The 'Sundance Festival' review (click here) of this film takes a tangential approach to conceptualizing it in referring to Abu Ghraib. That does both the prison atrocity of Iraq and this film a gross injustice.
This is an extremely important film in that it illustrates the ability of children to fall victim to the adults that supervise their care, including absent parents and paid caretakers. This is an actual crime that took place in 1968. It speaks loudly of the disempowerment of women and children in the USA while placing them in precarious realities of societal survival. It also clearly illustrates the vulnerability of children to their 'instincts' when 'group think' is harnessed as a social discipline. I believe there are many underlying messages in this film too numerous to speak to here.
My inital reaction from the beginning of the film when 'sexual secrets' accompanied relationships was that violence would eventually be realized in some manifestation culminating in death. There was never any doubt to me the teenage girl would end up dead even with the 'escape sequence' whereby the viewer is allowed to believe the worst wasn't going to happen. It was appropriate as a 'dreamscape' just before the reality of her actual death was completely evident in the film.
If this was simply a horror picture captured for some type of 'odd' fascination by the viewership I'd be up in arms at the concept, but, this film was very methodically investigated by it's creator and brilliantly so. I appreciate his devotion to the film and it's final presentation to the public.
Following the film we were treated to a question and answer session where he was very revealing about his interest in the subject and how he managed after many years to finally write the script and film it's presentation. It is a profoundly important film about this tragedy of which should be required viewing to any social advocate for children.
My impression had nothing to do with Abu Ghraib so much as the reality that child protection laws didn't exist and perhaps still don't to the extent they needed to when this crime occurred. My first thought drifted back to a time when the first child abuse case was heard in New York City facilitated by, of all things, 'animal protection laws' governing the use of carriage horses by the ASPCA. The year was 1957 if I recall it correctly. This film takes us back to about 11 years after that first case when children are still victims to false societal standards and women are left to wander through their reality as sexual beings to survive. In many ways it is an 'ugly' film about the realities of American families forced to the periphery of society.
I found the reality of the film extremely important in it's social dynamics and the traces of which can still be found the American society today.
