Domestic Violence

With a curious and unflinching eye, Frederick Wiseman embeds himself in a Florida domestic violence shelter to record its work and the extraordinary transformations it enables.

Focusing on The Spring, the largest domestic violence centre of its kind in the US, located in Tampa, Florida, Domestic Violence is often wrenching, but one of Wiseman’s most hopeful films. Hope lies in the fact that the women we encounter have sought and found shelter and are in the process of acknowledging and understanding their plight for the first time. In extended scenes of group therapy sessions, we observe the women unburden themselves with an honesty, eloquence and strength that almost completely belies their histories. What comes across vividly is the extent to which strength and weakness can co-exist within one person – the former no protection from becoming trapped in an abusive relationship.