Arthur J Bressan Jr started out making gay porn but before his death from AIDS he made two commercial films. The second one is Buddies which is about the buddy system developed to help infected people in the early days of the epidemic. His first commercial film is Abuse and he based it on an episode in his own life. As in the film Bressan met a teenage boy who was being abused. They became lovers. The boy was abused for years by his parents. The abuse became so severe Bressan feared the boy would be killed so he moved the two of them to a different city keeping their identities hidden.
I was abused by parents and others from birth so I have seen it all. As an abuse survivor I longed for years for a movie about my experiences with my family and others. I didn't have the family the priests and nuns said I had in Catholic School. In fact, the nuns and priests were not the nice people they claimed to be either. There are little touches in this film that are clues that it is based on fact. When the boy talks about the sessions in which his father burns him and he can tell when it is about to happen because that is when his mother strengthens her grip on him as an abuse survivor I recognized this detail as being the kind of detail a non survivor would not think of.
Bressan spares no one including himself: He has one of the characters say about him something he knows to be true: That by having a sexual relationship with the boy he went from being the boy's savior to being his molester. Child abuse is not just a series of trauma events; child abuse is an entire environment in which the child is betrayed by those who are supposed to care for him. All the child's needs are ignored, the child is not kept safe and the abusers maintain an appearance that prevents the child from getting help. Abused children do not fall through the cracks; we are stomped through and Bressan shows how it is done. It is for this reason I give his film a 10.
After the move I read that Bressan helped the boy stabilize his life and eventually the boy met someone age appropriate. I salute Bressan his courage and humility.
I was abused by parents and others from birth so I have seen it all. As an abuse survivor I longed for years for a movie about my experiences with my family and others. I didn't have the family the priests and nuns said I had in Catholic School. In fact, the nuns and priests were not the nice people they claimed to be either. There are little touches in this film that are clues that it is based on fact. When the boy talks about the sessions in which his father burns him and he can tell when it is about to happen because that is when his mother strengthens her grip on him as an abuse survivor I recognized this detail as being the kind of detail a non survivor would not think of.
Bressan spares no one including himself: He has one of the characters say about him something he knows to be true: That by having a sexual relationship with the boy he went from being the boy's savior to being his molester. Child abuse is not just a series of trauma events; child abuse is an entire environment in which the child is betrayed by those who are supposed to care for him. All the child's needs are ignored, the child is not kept safe and the abusers maintain an appearance that prevents the child from getting help. Abused children do not fall through the cracks; we are stomped through and Bressan shows how it is done. It is for this reason I give his film a 10.
After the move I read that Bressan helped the boy stabilize his life and eventually the boy met someone age appropriate. I salute Bressan his courage and humility.