While "human trafficking" and underaged sex exploded in the headlines via the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, filmmaker Kate Ryan Brewer's powerful documentary finds a hidden side to the exploitation of girls that is all the more disturbing because it is legal in the USA.
A vast majority of states (including liberal California) allow the forced marriage of juveniles. The feature declares thousands of forced marriages occur annually. If the three cases examined here are any example, they get a pass from lawmakers thanks to politically powerful (or at least untouchable) conservative sects, in an unholy union of parental rights and religious freedom.
Nina Van Harn, of Michigan, grew up amidst patriarchal Christians (the exact church not named) and was coerced by her father into a marriage to the man he chose, just like her mother before her. Sara Tasneem, of California, was only 15 when her father forced her to wed a 28-year-old groom. Though it is never specified, one can safely guess this was in the Muslim faith.
The narrative is less circumspect with Fraidy Reiss, raised in New Jersey's stifling Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. She was 19 when a traditional matchmaker linked her with a total stranger who turned violent and threatened Fraidy and their children. Rabbis and fellow members of their temple were no help and even sought to overturn a restraining order against the husband. Ultimately Fraidy Reiss obtained a divorce and became the very visible face of a nonprofit called Unchained at Last.
The point is made that in any other circumstances, what young brides in forced marriages undergo would be regarded as statutory rape. However, as juveniles, their choices become legally subservient to the strictures of their parents.
It is claimed that in the conformity-ridden 1950s of Happy Days fame, the statistical age of an all-American bride trended downwards, as though childbearing and obedience were a young American girl's Cold War patriotic duty. Much as the thesis echoes war-cries of feminism, one occasionally suspects that openly criticizing another "ism"—multiculturalism—is one boundary Knots prefers not to cross. Even when that culture sires something like The Handmaid's Tale.
The mise-en-scene portrays isolation and helplessness felt by females in forced marriages metaphorically via interpretive dance interludes by performer Bella Waru. A recommended purchase, especially for women's studies collections. (Aud: J, H, C, P)