Pervert Park

When you sit down to watch a documentary such as "Pervert Park" which deals with registered sex offenders, you have to do so with a neutral state of mind. I mean, you can't really go into watching something like this and either be judgmental or sympathetic in advance. No, you have to leave your own morale stand and views at the threshold.

And I did that when I sat down to watch the 2014 documentary "Pervert Park" here in 2021. I had never even heard about it, but had the opportunity to watch it.

Writers and directors Frida Barkfors and Lasse Barkfors does sort of set up a let's-feel-sympathetic-for-these-people portrait with the way that the documentary is narrated and by the questions asked. Sure, it does offer some insight into the mentality of the people that were interviewed, and hats off to them for participating in such a documentary and baring their stories and experiences.

There definitely were some very deviant experiences and backstories here in the documentary, and I will say that I sort of feel like the documentary should do a follow-up on the people, to see what happened since the interview and where they are in their lives and living/relationship situations some time after this documentary was shot.

And I also think that the documentary is sort of biased, as it only showcases the stories from the sides of the registered offenders. It would have been nice to have had some interviews with the victims or those closely related to the victims, to have their sides of the events brought out in the light as well.

I was adequately entertained by the documentary. And when I say "entertained", I mean that I feel that the documentary provided me with enough insight and enlightenment into some of the topics here. But at the same time was rather vague in other aspects. But all in all, adequate enough for a viewing.

I am rating this 2014 documentary a five out of ten stars.

As some of the other reviews will unintentionally tell you, if you don't already feel sympathetic to registered sex offenders who are shunned by society, this documentary will do little to change any of that.

Sure, flashing children on the street is not the same as molesting your own child for years on end. They don't merit the same reaction from society - that is true.

But this documentary does nothing but present a narrative with which we aren't already familiar. Sex offenders were so often victims of trauma themselves, violence breeds violence, when in Rome, etc., etc. But child abuse is wrong!, etc., etc.

To make matters worse, the offenders didn't seem to care about the victims, they only wanted to protect their own reputation - leading me to ask the wrong questions, the ones the documentary wanted me to avoid. Like, what kind of therapy they were receiving? How can they move along without true regret? What exactly have they learned? The place was only run by other sex offenders, should they even be giving each other therapy?

What I really wanted from this documentary, was a more objective look at what happens to the offender ones they have served their time in prison. I wanted the documentary to tell us how poor - on average - their chances of living a normal life afterwards would be. Maybe compare this to what happens murderers, or drug dealers, etc., to present this as the complex moral issue it truly is.

Sure, we can torment the offenders 'till the day they die, but what good will it do? Is it really that reasonable to prevent these people from becoming contributing members of society? Isn't it a waste of human life, or just plain ressources, to let them be outcasts forever and ever?

I think so. This problem won't be solved by looking away, no problem ever will, no matter how ugly it is. I wish people would talk about pedophilia more often. I wish there were ressources for people who had these wrong thoughts, I wish they were allowed to talk about them - so we could prevent them from taking actions, so we could give them the mental strength to do right.

But the documentary made a bad case for this, focused on the wrong ways to emit sympathy, and a murky way of presenting facts. It didn't provoke the kind of rational thought that would counter the terrifying feeling of knowing, that you are looking at a room full of people who have probably raped someone. Quite a shame, really. This documentary gets 6 stars, primarily because it is one of the only ones of it's kind.

This documentary will be difficult to stomach if you subscribe to the school of thought that views child molesters as disgusting, unable to be rehabilitated, and/or undeserving of sympathy. However, if you are willing to suspend your judgment for a mere hour, this film will surely have you second-guessing your stance by the end of it.

Pervert Park is a glimpse into the stories of several convicted child molesters who live together in a small trailer park. Both men and women inhabit this space, and their crimes vary in severity. When a violent child rapist is lumped together with someone who merely responded to the wrong Craigslist ad, it really makes you question why we vilify all sexual offenders as one and the same.

Their stories are brutally honest. The film tries to answer how these people became who they are, and where they plan to go from here. Rather than play into the creepiness factor, Pervert Park proves that many of these offenders are rational adults who clearly know right from wrong, but nonetheless found themselves in the position that they are in. The counseling sessions shown are extremely thought-provoking and may leave you questioning our typical "label and ostracize" response, especially when the line between being an actual predator and simply making a mistake is so blurry.

This is an empathetic documentary portrait of a group of convicted sex offenders who live together in a trailer park because laws restricting where they can live after release from prison has made it almost impossible to find shelter. The residents support each other in a society that has spurned them.

We sit in on their group therapy sessions which are a mix of heartbreaking and chilling. It's not easy to watch someone – even someone who seems to feel terrible remorse – relate the story of how he came to rape a 5 year old girl. But it's also powerful and sad to realize that almost to a person, all these men (and a couple of women) were themselves terribly sexually abused as children. And that one of their children whom they abused has now gone on to be convicted of a sex crime as well. The film posits that these people are certainly criminals, but they are also certainly victims as well, and that only through compassionate treatment can the cycle be broken.

It also makes clear that lumping so many offenders with crimes of wildly different seriousness in the same heading of 'registered sex offender', publishing their names and addresses, not allowing them to live or work in huge swaths of the areas they live in is - for many - a highly unfair practice, and actually endanger all the offenders, allowing those out to frighten or harm them easy access.

It's an uncomfortable film to watch – it's hard to find oneself empathetic to people who have done terrible things. But it's also an important questioning of how we treat other human beings, no matter what their past holds.

One flaw - I was frustrated that the film sites statistics that go against what most of us have heard so many times – stating that sex criminals are actually among the least likely to offend again, not the most – but then fails to say where those statistics come from, or why most people have heard the opposite. If you're going to challenge people's fears and conventional wisdom, you need more than an unattributed title card.

People nowadays can rationalize everything. From bizarre religious beliefs, weird sexual practices to outrageous political ideas...

Everything in relative and if one uses the right words and the correct approach everything becomes legit, OK, mainstream, acceptable.

Pervert Park is one more example of this abominable trend. The directors/producers cherry-picked a few sex offenders, transformed them in victims instead of perpetrators...showing that underneath the monster face there is a human being who needs an opportunity, a chance at redemption.

OK. I agree that a few, a small percentage of these guys can improve but what about the majority of them for whom there is no solution?

The only thing I ask myself is whether the directors and producers of this documentary would trust these guys to care for their 5-year daughters...