when is abuse an excuse?
If you think you're an open minded person, I suggest that you watch both of these documenataries at the same time,"the menendez murders: erik tells all" and "Lorena". Both deal with issues and trials that occurred about the same time but it's fascinating to watch how events turned out quite differently and the views of the protagonists and antagonists in both trials have strangely symmetrical views and yet are completely at odds in their opinions. I mean, Lorena is a woman who claims that she was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused over a long time until she had a momentary lapse of reason and fear and assaulted her husband. She was allowed at trial to raise 'abuse' as an issue in her defense and she was acquitted. "the menendez murders" is about two brothers that were physically, emotionally and sexually abused over a long time until they had a momentary lapse of reason and fear and killed their parents. In their first trial they were allowed to use 'abuse' in their defense and their trials ended up deadlocked and dismissed. But in their second trial, they were not allowed to use 'abuse' in their defense and they were both convicted. These are two completely different stories? No, they're not. If you lay out both documentaries side by side and listen to all the characters involved it's fascinating how similar the story is and how similar the protagonists and antagonists are in their opinions. It's fascinating how all the characters can be both wrong and right at the same time and how hypocritical and silly they can be too. Each documentary by itself is fairly average and one sided but both together and you've got gold. For instance, in 'lorena' you have a number of feminists arguing that women have been abused for a very long time and so it was only natural that something like this would happen as a way of justifying the crime. In the 'menendes brothers' you have mostly a number of characters claiming that no such abuse ever occurred despite over 50 witnesses who testified in the first case that it did. I don't care one way or the other if the facts as presented in the films are true or not. I couldn't possibly say what is the truth or not. But, it's fascinating to watch how all the characters (who again are living the same space and time period) justify their reasons for knowing what the truth is.
score 8/10
howboutthisone_huh 26 March 2020
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5578707/14454
Pages:
[1]