REWIND is an excellent look at a horrible crime - child abuse inflected by family members from one generation to the next. Director Sasha Joseph Neulinger grew up in a household where a video camera was always turned on, with this father recording the hijinks between his brothers and his own son and daughter. Watching the films, you can see the young children change from happy to troubled screamers in a very short period. It is hard to watch but makes for an engrossing film.
Unlike Ronan Farrow’s multi-part documentary about his own youth, Farrow Vs. Allen, REWIND always avoids conjecture, sticking to the facts to tell a complex tale in 90 minutes.
Though decades have passed since the events and subsequent trials of the perpetrators, the conversations with Neulinger’s mother, sister, and father (once considered a suspect) are devastating. The home movies – combined with archival tapes of the trials of the world-famous cantor with whom many people sided with when the victim testified against him – gives plenty of evidence of Neulinger’s strength, getting through a suicidal adolescence to emerge as a strong advocate for those abused.
Films like this – and the recent coverage of the NHL’s Blackhawks abuse scandal - are excellent ways to bring a very difficult subject to the forefront of societal problems that need to be exposed.
REWIND can be viewed on Amazon Prime.