I spent my last 24 hours of freedom relaxing and watching a bunch of movies. Two of them were just dumb piles of action: Banlieue 13 (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was remarkable for the all the Parkour-ish action, while Smokin’ Aces (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was remarkable only for the extreme hotness of Alicia Keys. Both were fun to watch, but gone from my head the second they ended.

However, this afternoon I watched a documentary called Deliver Us From Evil (imdb | rotten tomatoes), and it’s going to stay with me for a long, long time. It was at the film festival last year and I wanted to see it then, as documentary filmmakers always shed more light on their films in person at festivals. However, the finished product is more then enough for me.

Director Amy Berg told the story of Oliver O’Grady, a catholic priest who sexually abused children in California in the 70s and 80s. She used extensive interviews with O’Grady himself (more on him in a minute) and with a few victims and their families, as well as deposition interviews with various members of the church. There was also analysis from lawyers, theologians and even a reformist priest. From a craft standpoint, Berg worked the story up perfectly from the small details to the bigger picture, including the dissection of how catholic doctrine and hierarchy could allow — even enable — this abuse to happen, and making sure not to absolve the highest of levels…even the current pope himself was connected to the scandals at the highest levels. Expertly done, and completely gripping.

O’Grady himself was difficult to watch. There can be no doubt that the man is a sociopath, but he seemed to hover on the fine line between disturbed and monstrous. I could never quite determine if his actions were the result of horrid intent or uncontrollable disease, but I never felt as if he were anything but evil. But he was one man, and he could have been stopped. For years the church protected itself by protecting him, moving him from one town to the next, giving him opportunity after opportunity to abuse and rape adults, children and even infants. While the film shows O’Grady through an unfiltered lens — the man needs no help in damning himself — the accusatory finger is firmly leveled at the California diocese and the church itself.

If you can stomach the subject matter — and it is very disturbing to watch O’Grady, because the man not only exhibits an utter lack of remorse, he still seems truly menacing — then I cannot recommend the film enough. And if you’re worried that it unfairly attacks Catholics, it doesn’t; it attacks self-serving power structures. As the afore-mentioned reformist priest said, “Real Catholics are revolutionaries, like Jesus. Did you ever notice that the only time Jesus got mad was when he went to church?”

[tags]banlieue 13, smokin’ aces, deliver us from evil[/tags]