Domestic Violence

Wiseman's low-frills approach works very well here, taking a social problem and showing how institutions in one particular locality (Tampa) at one particular moment (1998) respond poorly or well to its many complex dimensions. Makes clear firstly that the problem has very serious consequences that unfold every day without public attention, but also that framing strong and rigid laws to respond to that problem has its own real cost. Main thing: being poor in the USA is perpetual hard labour.

This makes for genuinely heartbreaking viewing. Wiseman uses his documentary approach with his usual compassion and discipline to make painfully evident the hellish life some lead due to the inhuman nature of so-called loved ones. The efforts of those featured in this film to meaningfully change the lives of these victims is something everyone needs to appreciate. But, tempting as it may be, Wiseman does not judge the offenders; he documents them.

Such a weighty and difficult issue, that no statistic-spewing talking-head could ever do it justice, and so truly benefits from Frederick Wiseman's unobtrusive, sprawling and patient style of exposition. There are some bits that should have been cut out to spare our time, particularly when the counselors talk among themselves about people we have no background on, but on the whole it's an insightful film and worth watching all the way to the final scene.

"Wiseman is patient and uncompromising, letting his camera observe and record the lives of women torn apart by a legacy of abuse." - Ed Gonzalez