Monster in the Family: The Struggle Continues

Last fall, CTV aired a two-part documentary called Monster in the Family, which was one of the first things I recorded after mastering the use of my new DVD/hard-disk recorder. I liked part 1 very much (and hadn't realized that it had first aired more than a year earlier), but I never got around to watching part 2 until now.

Interesting story. Too bad it wasn't a 15-minute magazine piece.

The original Monster in the Family was a great investigative piece - the kind that once would have found a home only on the CBC's Fifth Estate. It examined the case of Martin Ferrier, a man whose own mother campaigned to have him declared a dangerous offender, claiming he was an incurable psychopath. Ferrier was even singled out by Stephen Harper in a campaign speech as the kind of guy the Conservatives would lock away forever. The filmmaker, John Kastner, built a solid case arguing that Ferrier wasn't terribly dangerous at all, pointing out that his actual crimes were far less serious than the media had reported, that at worst he was a serial passer of bad cheques and not a serial rapist or wannabe murderer as had been reported. By the end of the film it was clear that it was his mother who was the monster - abandoning him as a child, then later making wild claims about him that were contrary to all the actual hard evidence, and campaigning to keep him locked up. It was a great piece of journalism - taking a closer look at a story that had been widely reported and showing a very different reality. This is crusading television at its best. Would that there were more of it.

And part 2? An epilogue stretched into a TV hour. It picks up Ferrier's story a year after his release, and shows that he is indeed doing much better, staying out of trouble and learning how to live as a free man and a responsible citizen. But there just isn't much there aside from some interviews and b-roll. Ferrier, understandably, doesn't want to call attention to himself by having a camera follow him around. So we don't actually see him interacting with anyone except a volunteer mentor and a sympathetic landlord. We don't see him at work, we don't see him with friends... With the exception of one significant scene towards the end, the film feels entirely like an afterthought.

Kastner had a long and distinguished career as a CBC producer, winning three Emmys and various other honours. He's been an independent for many years now, but somehow, unfortunately, seems stuck still in the current-affairs style of filmmaking. There's heavy narration in the CBC style, we keep hearing him asking questions... I kept expecting the Fifth Estate's Linden McIntyre to step out of the shadows and do a stand-up, except that it was Kastner's voice that we heard throughout. There are lots of standard current-affairs shots, such as the guy being introduced in narration as he's walking down the hall. One might argue that this doc is largely a journalistic enterprise and demands this approach because a lot of information must be delivered. But to me, it just isn't cinematic.

So what to conclude about Monster in the Family: The Struggle Continues? It never should have been a separate film. The original could have been re-edited into a 75-minute feature with a one-year-later final act. But the reality of independent filmmaking is, you make a lot more money from a new one-hour than from a re-cut.