Harrowing

That's the only word that describes a moving and breathtaking documentary I watched last evening. Of course it was on TVO and if course it was a British production, which explains its stark and riveting reality. It was about sexual abuse of boys in an English prep school in the sixties and seventies. Checking the listings, I realized I would have to forego the regular 9 p.m. intellectual challenges of Hannah Montana, Fear Factor, Degrassi, Hoarding, The Simpsons, Property Brothers..........and other such mind-expanding emissions, but TVO won out.

For two hours I was transfixed. Instead of the usual Canadian or American look at this atrocity -- featuring interviews with anesthetized "experts", bone-headed intellectuals (is there any other kind!), delusional counsellors, or well-meaning teachers -- this film gave you raw, painful head-shot accounts of three of the victims. And that was all. There were no other characters featured, just ordinary, now middle-aged, married men talking about how it had all happened.

The scene was set by a few captions indicating the years the boys had been at the school, but they then proceeded to tell their stories unedited. Neither the interviewer nor the questions were heard, just the ghastly telling of their tales -- how they had been chosen, then groomed over a number of months to feel "special" and "honoured" and finally invited into the master's rooms for these criminal encounters. And these were children of 11 who had absolutely no idea about sex whatsoever. Their parents had never discussed anything with them and in the thoroughly British tradition, saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no evil. All the men told their tales with calm frankness and each was extremely articulate. Repulsively, they spoke of how they knew they had no choice, knew it would continue, knew it would escalate into the worst possible atocities, but knew there was absolutely no way they could have told anyone. To have told would have been to betray and destroy their parents. To have told would have meant they had been very, very evil themselves.

Every hideous moment was recalled, but mercifully not described in detail too wretched for the viewer. Nevermind. You got it. In spades. It was riveting and so very sad. All were now married with families, but for years they thought they must have been homosexual, or else why would these masters have chosen them? (Made me wonder about whether one is born gay? Afterall, if your first sexual encounters are with the same sex, might you decide to continue down that path? But that's another story.) The interviews were interspersed with old black-and-white photos of the boys at home with their parents, smiling on the rugby pitch, singing in the choir -- images which made their tales of horror frighteningly lurid and graphic.

The actual pedophiles were identified by name and a myriad of photos of their evil, smiling faces featured throughout -- many showing them smiling and chatting with the victims' parents at civilized tea parties on the grounds. Until their parents had died, none of the men had come forward and although charges were laid after 30 years, they pretty much went no where. And so it continues. But the courage and bravery these men showed was heroic. If you ever get a chance, watch it. It will change your view of pedophilia forever.