Schande

At first sight you might think that it's the usual story of a child living with her mother and her new friend. The mother who wants to divorce and thinks to have found the right thing to do so: abuse by the father of the child. She cannot believe that it is her new friend. The film shows that the problem of an abused child is more than the abuse alone. It always gives loyalty problems. This film pictures this very well.

This is one of the most disturbing yet accurate portrayals of child sexual abuse that I have ever seen. It underlines how much the child victim is psychologically at the mercy of the perpetrator, and how indelible are the scars of guilt and shame which the abuse creates. It left me shaking. If your standard of TV drama is the ABC Disease-of-the-Month weepie, then see this German made-for-TV movie (broadcast as OUTRAGE on French-language TV in Ontario) and learn how it ought to be done. There are no happy endings or trite plot resolutions. The characters, even the sympathetic ones, are flawed, self-absorbed. The performance by child actress Stephanie Charlotta Koetz as the abused child Bernice is quite overwhelming. Don't miss it if you get a chance.