Abuse

Arthur J Bressan Jr started out making gay porn but before his death from AIDS he made two commercial films. The second one is Buddies which is about the buddy system developed to help infected people in the early days of the epidemic. His first commercial film is Abuse and he based it on an episode in his own life. As in the film Bressan met a teenage boy who was being abused. They became lovers. The boy was abused for years by his parents. The abuse became so severe Bressan feared the boy would be killed so he moved the two of them to a different city keeping their identities hidden.

I was abused by parents and others from birth so I have seen it all. As an abuse survivor I longed for years for a movie about my experiences with my family and others. I didn't have the family the priests and nuns said I had in Catholic School. In fact, the nuns and priests were not the nice people they claimed to be either. There are little touches in this film that are clues that it is based on fact. When the boy talks about the sessions in which his father burns him and he can tell when it is about to happen because that is when his mother strengthens her grip on him as an abuse survivor I recognized this detail as being the kind of detail a non survivor would not think of.

Bressan spares no one including himself: He has one of the characters say about him something he knows to be true: That by having a sexual relationship with the boy he went from being the boy's savior to being his molester. Child abuse is not just a series of trauma events; child abuse is an entire environment in which the child is betrayed by those who are supposed to care for him. All the child's needs are ignored, the child is not kept safe and the abusers maintain an appearance that prevents the child from getting help. Abused children do not fall through the cracks; we are stomped through and Bressan shows how it is done. It is for this reason I give his film a 10.

After the move I read that Bressan helped the boy stabilize his life and eventually the boy met someone age appropriate. I salute Bressan his courage and humility.

This rare B&W feature is notable for its head-on dealing with child abuse issues, but what is particularly disturbing about it is something else, and I'm not really sure how the director intended it to be taken. Of course we sympathize with the abused kid Thomas and are horrified at his treatment by his parents. But it's hard to know what was intended in portraying Larry, the gay filmmaker who gets involved with him as a subject for his documentary about child abuse, as glib and blase about using him that way. He seems unconcerned about the ethical issues of not reporting Thomas' situation (of which he soon has evidence) to the authorities.

And then after a point the two become sexually involved, which needless to say brings up issues of pederastic sexual exploitation (as Thomas is supposed to be 14, though the actor playing him was probably 18 or 19 during filming, and looks it). Apart from the doctor character played by Steve James, there's not much onscreen or even implied criticism of this relationship or its appropriateness, and there are stock "romantic couple having fun" montages that are the opposite of critical. Towards the end Larry does become more urgently concerned about Thomas, but as when they met the boy was already being severely mistreated, this arrives rather too late to wash away the weirdness of his casual attitude in dealing with the youth as an abuse victim, not to mention also as a viable romantic partner. And no, it's not an "Oh well, people were so much more open-minded back then" thing. I was a young adult in 1983. Trust me, no one in the gay community would have thought it was OK to behave as Larry does. Yes, NAMBLA existed, but it was (and apparently remains) a tiny extremist fringe group whom nobody wanted to be associated with.

Like Bressan's other non-adult feature "Buddies," "Abuse" is crude in some aspects. It's obviously made on a shoestring, has uneven acting, and is more sophisticated in its politics (at least as far as the perspective on child abuse goes) than in its dramaturgy. Is Larry meant to be quite so unsympathetic? Or did Bressan simply see him as a fellow artist, necessarily prioritizing his art above anything (and anyone) else? it's hard to know. I'm sure the film was intended to provoke and disturb, but its ambiguities are clumsily laid out, which is a real problem when dealing with issues this incendiary. So, an interesting and significant film, but a very mixed bag in artistic terms.

I first saw this film at a special screening in 1982 or 1983, and it is so burned into my memory that NOTHING that Raphael Sbarge has done since can supplant some of the scenes from "Abuse," which is not to disparage his 21 years of subsequent work, but to praise this film. I have made it a point to try to see EVERYTHING else Sbarge has appeared in because I was so awed by "Abuse."

SPOILER: I am using "hot" terms to describe this movie because of one scene in particular, in which Thomas is pinned to the floor by his parents and burned with a lit cigarette. The scene is unbelievably shocking and demonstrates the horrible abuse which is too often visited upon Gay kids.

One of the saddest things about "Abuse" is the number of people who will find the relationship between Thomas and Larry (the Gay man who tries to rescue him) to be somehow "more abusive" than the torture of Thomas by his parents!

This is not a film for the squeamish, but I highly recommend it.

Short Synopsis: a filmmaker develops a friendship to a vulnerable child of abuse to make his final piece for his graduation. As he peers closer to his world, he falls in love AND tries to save him from his cruel situation.

I think it meant well but this came off really creepy.

There is no turning back about an adult man having feelings towards a 14 year old who clearly is struggling with the fact that his parents is abusing him. Then it gets worst, when the film shows him getting emotionally manipulative to the abused kid, who in his most vulnerable state. All the while, the director is trying to use this same kid's 'abuse' for his project AND trying to be objective. Its very creepy. Its not in any place to frame the drama about.

Even with its framing of the director 'as savior', does not remotely makes the narrative less problematic. It makes it even more darker than what the film is leading it to be.

I personally like the treatment of Buddies more since it is a well written and sensible gay drama. This is sensible if looked with how it tries to portray Abuse but fails on every other facet. Its so weird and icky.

Not recommended.

This film was made in 1982, I finally saw it. I must tell you it is a most devastating docu-drama on child abuse. We have a film student who is making a documentary about child abuse & he meets a lad of 14 who has been badly & viciously abused by his parents.Both the film student & lad are both gay . We learn about the lads abuse & other abusers (parents who abuse the small children in public playgrounds) as the story develops we all realize the lad & film maker are falling in love. This film is harrowing & sometimes hard to watch. BUT see it. You will be enthralled as I was. Jay Harris