Rated (MA) Documentary

Here is one of the weirdest cinematic experiences you might ever have. It might also open up all sorts of questions in your mind.

Questions like: What makes a family? What can happen to a family when it's under threat? How might witness testimony be influenced? How might a person's story about events evolve over time? How might the hysteria surrounding paedophilia make it difficult to try accused people fairly? What is truth? And why the devil does a family take such copious amounts of video footage of itself — not just during its best times but also during its very worst?

Arnold Friedman is a teacher of good standing in the Long Island town of Great Neck. One Thanksgiving, he and his wife and three sons are preparing for dinner when police arrive and Arnold is led off in handcuffs and in a blaze of publicity.

As the investigation continues, we learn that Arnold and his son Jesse are accused of hundreds of crimes said to have occurred while Arnold was teaching computer classes in his home basement.

This disturbingly intimate non-fiction feature film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Director Andrew Jarecki says of the Friedmans, "In this family, the [Friedman] camera was almost another family member. It was a participant. It was present all the time."

And yet Jarecki edits what each family member (including the Friedman camera) reveals to him, into what is a compelling tale that draws no easy conclusions. That he makes the whole thing feel like a home movie, where the point seems to be in the showing and not in the deducing is to his credit. What he's captured, eloquently, is not just the Friedmans, but also the sense that truth is elusive and slippery — even, or perhaps especially, when it's a camera that's trying to get at it.

Marjorie Lewis-Jones