Since viewing, via Netflix streaming,
FAMILY AFFAIR, the all-about-my-dysfunctional-family documentary by
Chico Colvard,
TrustMovies has been thinking about the film ever since, wondering why -- among many other topics for discussion -- this 2010 movie has not received wider acclaim and much more popularity. It is a remarkably brave endeavor, for both the filmmaker and his many family members, who contributed to the documentary with their honest and straight-forward interviews about a subject that is not all that often discussed, and certainly not with the truthfulness and attempt at genuine understanding that is found here. The film is about family violence and incest, where these comes from and how they move from one generation to the next (we see four generations here).
The reason, I suspect, that
Family Affair is not better known, is that it's simply too strange, surprising and complex in what it shows and tells us about a subject that is usually handled in the most broad, obvious, single-note and knee-jerk manner. The tale the film tells, while it may seems stagger-ingly "original," is probably not unlike many others out there. The difference can be found in the details, of course, but also in the deci-sion of Mr. Colvard (shown at left) and his siblings, father and other relatives to not only "spill the beans" but then to try to figure out what those beans add up to and why they turned out the way they did.
Now, Chico Colvard, it should be said straight out, is no psychologist. Nor is he any brilliant filmmaker. He is simply a man who has tried the best he can to bring to light the story of his family. His "best" turns out to be plenty good enough, for this movie will stay with you and, if you watch it with others, provide reams of discussion. When Chico was ten years old -- with thanks, he feels to the old
Chuck Connors TV show
Rifleman that he loved watching -- the boy took a gun belonging to his father and shot one of his sisters several times in the leg. This was not any kind of "anger release," it seems, but more an accident in which the boy misunderstood the reality of a gun (and just one more reason, though the movie does not state this, for better gun control).
The incident, which drew the police to the home, also brought to light the father's violence and sexual abuse of the three sisters (Chico himself was not abused physically nor sexually). What happened after, and why -- to the children's mother (a white German woman the black father had married while in the military service abroad), to the children, and to the father himself -- is riveting and rich in history, social and otherwise. What has happened to the extended family, meanwhile, is every bit as odd and amazing. Or maybe not, when you stop to think about what family means and how much so many of us want it in our lives, come hell or high water.
How the people we see here have accommodated "family" -- through abuse, guilt, payback and self-hurt, among other reactions -- makes for one hell of a story, fractured as it is. Colvard himself can't make complete sense of it, understand or even empathize totally with the many different viewpoints we see and hear. Who -- save an all-seeing, all-knowing deity -- could? But he gives all this to us, raw and undigested, and simply asks that we try to understand. The great amazement and strength of this 80-minute movie is that somehow we do.
Family Affair -- a don't-miss documentary -- is available now via
Netflix streaming. Miss it, and you will miss one of the more unusual family stories of our times.
