His documentary is not for the faint of heart, nor is it for those who cannot stomach the some of the facts of this case. The research and editing were especially skilled, balancing the tragic and perverted aspects of both Lorena as well as her former husband John. It also shines an uncomfortable light on us.
This was not just the tale of these two people, but it was a story emblematic of the history and tragedy of domestic violence in our contemporary society as well as all civilization.
The film draws a portrait of Lorena as an Ecuadoran immigrant with stars in her eyes and tragically naive and immature faculties for assessing the character of a man who would be worthy to marry or even allow to be intimate with her in any way. She clearly did not have the maturity or temperament to be married as such a young age to a seriously disturbed man as John Wayne Bobbitt. The end of the story pictures her in her mid-50's with a mature much wiser outlook, but with the war-wounds of a battered spouse. I was both outraged and unnerved by the fact that she took a knife and cut of her husband's genital, but I was also sympathetic to the horriffying abuse she suffered.
More tragically, the portrait of John is that of a deeply contradictory soul, one who is "not the brightest bulb in the pack" by the assessment of one of the lawyers in his criminal trial, and yet very mild, cordial and even shy. On the other hand, his persona contains that of an enraged survivor of childhood sexual and domestic abuse himself. By the end of the 8-hours of documentary footage, I felt both great compassion as well a deep contempt for this man who, although a pathological liar, was himself incapable of seeing that he first lies to himself about reality. In contrast to Lorena's survival, John remains clearly a lost soul with no one to support or understand him. I don't know whether to sit and listen to his pain or to wack him in the side of the head for having been one of the biggest a&*^%olles and perverted rapists in this century. He makes me ashamed to be a man and makes me understand all the rage of women against men in general, although he is a symbol of the lowest among our gender.
Finally, the film did a great job of shining a light on us, society and the media, for treating the Bobbitt case as a form of perverted and amusing tabloid entertainment on the one hand and as an epic tragedy of our own selves on the other. At some points the film causes us to look at the situation with tongue-in-cheek satisfaction that of a man who got what was coming to him and a look at a couple who seemed to have deserved each other. Then again it caused us all to look soberly into the mirror of our own perversions and weep with horror at what we have become.
After decades since this incident, will domestic violence cease in America? Will be ever be healed? The film's message seems to be "probably not": we remain in denial and the current climate of our culture (Epstein, Wienstein, the #MeToo movement, Trump in the Oval Office, etc.), it will probably get worse. Perhaps much worse.
I marked this as containing spoilers since some viewers may be unaware of the facts and history of a case that is widely known by most Americans.