Doc Corner: 'Victim/Suspect' on Netflix

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

Nancy Schwartzman’s latest documentary wades forcefully into sensitive territory. As she had done with (the superior) Roll Red Roll in 2018, she charts stories of sexual assault and rape in places where police, the justice system, and society at large too often find ambiguity and uncertainty. An audience watching Victim/Suspect is probably not among those who do, although I suppose launching on such a platform as Netflix may help capture some viewers whose attitudes towards people like those in Schwartzman’s doc are ingrained enough to need rewiring and allow them the empathy required to understand their circumstance.

As the title implies, Victim/Suspect is about women who have reported the crime of rape and have instead become the one arrested. Whether it be due to apathy or investigative sloppiness on behalf of the police or just plain old misogyny and bias, they end up handcuffed and sent to prison. Charged with the crime of falsely reporting a rape—which, to some of the police featured within the film via videotape, appears to be more offensive than the sexual crime itself. As one officer observes, they need to be taught a lesson for the police time that they suggest has been wasted. All because they can’t find (or don’t care to find) the sufficient evidence needed to believe them.

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Doc Corner: The Compelling 'Roll Red Roll'

By Glenn Dunks

“She is so raped right now… this is the funniest thing ever.”

That’s one of the callous lines that opens Nancy Schwarzman’s debut feature documentary, Roll Red Roll. Played against misty images of an otherwise seemingly peaceful hamlet, the opening minute is not the last time we will hear those words, spoken as they were by a male high schooler as a young girl lay drunken and unconscious on the floor of his friend’s rec room. The words return later, this time in video form, as the boy in question laughs and smiles, his face radiating with some sort of queasy pride for his friends, two fellow high schooler students who would eventually be found guilty of rape.

It’s important to not beat around the bush here – after all, Schwarzman’s film doesn’t...

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