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Moviegoers may have noticed that 2003 has already distinguished itself as an unusual year at the movies. We've had an overdose of action based on comic books. We've seen the advent of two-part movies—this summer's Matrix Reloaded will soon by followed by Matrix Revolutions and in October we get Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1. At the box office, family-friendly films Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean have surpassed the year's most heavily hyped blockbusters.

Perhaps the most interesting trend in this year's films has been the increasing number of "must see" documentaries. So far, critics and audiences are receiving docs better than either dramas or comedies. The summer's most suspenseful film was Spellbound. Winged Migration was the most visually enthralling.

Two recently released documentaries deserve attention for exploring similar territory in extremely different ways. Capturing the Friedmans and Stevie are both concerned with the consequences of concealed sin—especially the sin of child molestation. Both films are galvanizing experiences that viewers are unlikely to forget. One tells a distressing story in order to show viewers how quickly they can jump to conclusions about complicated matters. The other shows us the potential for redemption in the most troubled souls and gives shining examples of Christians acting as role models.

One nasty surprise follows another in Capturing the Friedmans

Director Andrew Jarecki began working on a documentary about Silly Billy, New York's most successful party clown, David Friedman. He ended up with a much more ambitious film about the man's family history and a scandal that rocked the Long Island town of Great Neck.

Jarecki must have been surprised at Friedman's remarkable generosity in detailing the destruction of his upper-middle-class Jewish family. But by the end of his journey, he had a treasure trove of information from the family as a whole to work with. As it turns out, the Friedman men were obsessed with video cameras. Although David's mother, Elaine, was not so fond of them, his father, Arnold, enthusiastically cooperated with his sons David, Jesse, and Seth in the video documentation of everything from family vacations to dinner conversations.

Thus, in the mid-'80s, when Arnold was arrested on charges of possessing child pornography, the boys began filming their disbelief and their debates about their father's level of guilt. They even filmed Arnold being taken away from the house.

That was just the beginning. Soon, they were filming their own emotional breakdowns as the community came alive with accusations about perverse sex crimes that allegedly took place in the Friedmans' basement, where Arnold, with the help of his sons, taught computer classes to children from the surrounding neighborhood. Many children testified that they had not only been molested, but also raped, as Arnold supposedly lured them into shockingly perverse games. When the middle son, Jesse, at that time 18, was also implicated in the crimes, things started splitting at the seams.

The most compelling thing about Capturing the Friedmans is not, however, what Jarecki discovers about criminal activity behind closed doors. Rather, we are shocked and unsettled by the way our own assumptions about the situation fall apart time and time again. Right away in the film, we think we can figure things out because of the "facts" being delivered by seemingly trustworthy authorities. But then another investigation by more skeptical investigators calls these "facts" into question. Soon we don't know what to believe. All that is clear is this: Mr. Friedman has done something wrong, but he is lying about it and he refuses to clarify needlessly complicated issues. As long as he holds on to his lie, the destruction of his family and of the lives of those around him will continue. It plays out like a Shakespearean tragedy, and makes for one of the most compelling portraits of evil you're ever likely to see on film.

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September (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47