Mentor is the name of an affluent Ohio community outside Cleveland, where five high school teens committed suicide between 2005-2010, most as a result of peer-group bullying. Filmmaker Alix Lambert's Mentor investigates the two most recent deaths. Sladjana was a member of a Croatian family fleeing war-torn Bosnia who landed in Greater Cleveland's Eastern European community. Taunted for her accent and appearance, Sladjana's emotional complaints were ignored, despite repeated visits (Lambert shows the log-in documents) to the school clinic. She later hung herself, and local school mean girls continued to joke online about what she wore at her funeral. Eric was accused by classmates of being gay and advised to kill himself, which he did with a gun six weeks before classes let out. Area adults subsequently ostracized his family. Granted, Mentor presents these tragedies almost entirely from the point-of-view of agonized parents, siblings, and lawyers, since school representatives refused interview requests. Even so, Lambert's inquest paints a damning picture of wholesale administrative failure in the face of chronic wrongdoing, bureaucratic indifference, and official insensitivity by an image-conscious suburb. A powerful documentary about bullying, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)
Mentor
(2014) 80 min. DVD: $24.95. Garden Thieves Pictures (avail. from www.amazon.com). Volume 30, Issue 2
Mentor
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