Sisters in Law is an interesting documentary about obtaining justice in three cases involving spousal abuse, child rape, and child abuse. The latter case is particularly striking since we are directly confronted with the interview of the victim, see the scars, and also the confrontation (by not only the prosecutor, but other family members, who did not know what was happening) of the abuser herself. It might be called a bit touchy ethically to expose all these things to view (especially basically having the abuser beg the child for forgiveness -- she is six and this did not seem healthy) and one wonders about how the filming was set-up. [My sister likes Law and Order, and would otherwise probably like this sort of film, but probably would find these scenes hard to watch.]
Overall, a bit of context would have been helpful, but not provided -- we only saw the "sisters" (the judge, legal aid and one of the guards were all women) at work plus one quick scene of the prosecutor talking about the spousal abuse case in class. It surely would have been useful since the documentary took place in Cameroon (West Africa). [That spousal abuse case was the first successful prosecution in her seventeen years.] Are matters dealing with women done through women laden courts? [The divorce proceeding was separate, done in a male dominated hearing that granted her the largely pro forma divorce, but made things somewhat less comfortable.] How was the filming handled? Unfortunately, I did not go to the viewing where the filmmaker took questions.
I noted similar slight unease when discussing the documentary concerning the program teaching beauty skills to women in Afghanistan. A bit of backstory often is quite illuminating. For instance, in a sentencing statement, the judge spoke about African culture and the practice of correcting children -- she made clear that child abuse is not the same thing. Also, at least one of the women were Muslim, which raises interesting questions. And, perspectives from the main officials involved would also be useful. Editing decisions need to be made, and "Court TV" type view of things worked well, but a bit of connective tissue also could have been useful.
Finally, it is interesting how English is the official language, though some spoke a "pidgin" form or a native language. It turns out that a chunk of Cameroon -- as is the case in West Africa generally -- is French. But, there was a British area. Is the court system nationwide under the British system? After all, civil law courts have various different procedures, including not using the adversarial mode with which we are familiar. And, English and French are both official languages. [Adding to the polygot flavor, my World Almanac tells me the religious breakdown is roughly equally Christian/native (80%) and the rest Muslim. ... It is also a young nation, over 40% under fifteen.]
I never did see a documentary playing in the same theater (Film Forum) concerning nationalistic performances during Cultural Revolution China. But, there has been a good number of interesting documentaries of late, underlining the value of being close to the movie laden area of Manhattan. I also see that there actually is a documentary channel on Dish Network, but a quick look thus far suggests they are not that interesting -- second tier sort of things that might not have made PBS. Still, it's a good idea, and probably has some things of interest.
btw The replacement radio play by play guy for the Mets -- sounding like a low rent version of the old one -- annoys, so I'm glad Dish Network has SNY. [Darling, backing up Keith as the color analyst also is a bit of a soundalike, but is a better fit overall.] But, enough with the cheers -- let's see what the Mets do when they play real competition. Why are they doing so great vis-a-vis the rest of baseball? Others have better teams to beat than the Marlins and Nationals.
Still, looking good.