Tell No One

"Tell No One" is a polish independent documentary founded by a couple of hundreds donors. It was made available free of charge on the Internet by the director, who is a known journalist in Poland- a country with a populace of about 38 500 000, ~90% of which is Catholic. And after exactly and merely 1 week since this motion picture went online it already had 19 500 000 views and over 64 000 comments beneath it (with a growing percentage of them being from foreigners)

What this movie is about?

It tells personal stories and struggles of victims of catholic priests, who sexually abused them or simply raped them, with confrontations between the now grownup children and the aged wrongdoers. It also shows step by step how the supervisors in Church should have known and / or indeed knew about these particular and such crimes in overall, but just ignored them or even made possible for new ones to happen. Last but not least it reveals that all of that is still going on, while the victims have to fight hard for the truth, their rights and even for a factual removal of such degenerated priests from the flock. Tragedies presented are various, with the oldest one being 40 years old and the newest one from the 2010's, also showcasing that both sexes were the target of male priests

What is this motion picture not?

It does not attack religion- one of the victims even became a priest himself. It does not advocacy for anything nor present organizations who fight with religions or with corruption within religious denominations (a segment about one has been removed from the final cut). It rarely call names, as it even often utilizes euphemisms, and leaves it mostly up to the viewers to drawn conclusions. And this motion picture almost does not go after pope John Paul II (a Pole himself), whose legacy is now questioned on the account of roaming pedophilia in the Church during his long time reign. But certainly it says nothing about government officials and politicians failing to protect the children. It is also not about the history of Catholic Church and the social background of it in Poland and it does not contain biographies

What is this documentary missing?

In course of the media frenzy after the premiere of this movie, some polish critics said that it lacked info about how communistic secret police recruited these very particular priests- thus gave them a supposed protection before the fall of communism in 1989. The director (along with his brother who was the producer) said after the premiere, that it was a conscious choice as to not distract from the main protagonists: the victims. But if we assume that such side information should have been included- then also the latter democratic judicial system and law order would had to be dissected. That post 1989 system is present to some extent in the movie, but it is not not presented in a negative light- which negativity in relation to policing agencies and enacted laws would not had been hard to show. But what could really benefit this documentary is a sample case of how some local community went against the families of victims and defended a molesting priest, as in past years such cases were reported by some polish media. That would expand and help to illustrate what an interviewed psychologist talks about and would also shed some light on what must be going inside the head of the first democratic polish president- Mr. Lech Walesa. In the political wake this movie had created in Poland, he commented on two sexual predators present in it, which whom he was closely affiliated with during his freedom fight and political carrier- by saying that knew nothing about their deviations so he simply cannot come to terms with crimes of his chaplains. And in regards to knowledge, this documentary does not inform always when a presented material took place. Also the font of subtitles for mumbled or anonymized speech and titles for location information are too small and too bright- on the technical side this film is simply missing a more readable font

What should not have been incorporated into this feature presentation?

Dramatization gimmicks. Of course movie buffs can argue, that all film productions can be called one big manipulation or alteration of reality. But aside from usual things like fade outs to black screen, "Tell No One" uses two obvious and intrusive cinematic gimmicks. First is inclusion of dramatic music. When one of the victims ends abruptly the meeting with the now retired priest, the viewers are fed with long continuous take from a hidden camera accompanied by what might be called sad strings- it is not diegetic music, but an original score. The video footage itself and its original sounds are more than enough in terms of emphasizing that victim's feelings. After all, this is suppose to be a dramatic documentary and not a drama flick- the music in it may be scarce, but nevertheless it manipulates the viewers when present. The second filmmaking trick is with (also scarce) alteration of (quite abundant) archive video and photo footage, making it look older and creepy. Although it rather OK to apply such effects for any new footage shot with purpose of recreating real events, it was also applied to e.g. quite fresh interview of (a priest) spokesperson of the polish catholic hierarchy. By the time that attempt to whitewash his compromised organization in front of a professional journalist is presented in this feature, viewers capable of critical thinking will be already outraged by what is said in that TV interview. And so altering of that footage is totally uncalled for- its original form is more than enough to shock the viewer

So, in overall is independent "Tell No One" an informative documentary about serious contemporary problems and a good movie made professionally enough? Yes

Should you watch it? Yes

And do tell everybody