Tragic 'Friedmans' flick too troubling

You can't help but feel sorry for the Friedman family. The Long Island family was tragically torn apart in the late 1980's when the father and one of the sons were accused, perhaps rightly or wrongly, and sent to jail for child molestation. But while watching "Capturing the Friedmans," an agonizing and frustrating documentary by first-time filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, you also can't help but feel like you have absolutely no business sticking your nose in their lives.\nIt's a melancholy and unsettlingly voyeuristic film ("'The Real World' for the PBS crowd," panned Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan), and it's obsessively full of disturbing home movies. It's a controversial film, and I understand why: a second DVD is full of special features including questions, answers, heated debates, interviews and previously unseen home videos.\nDespite my reservations, the film was not short on praise; it won the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and landed on over a hundred mainstream critics' top ten lists. It does show the chaos that ensues when a family encounters something so shocking, and it does show the imperfections of our legal system. \nMaybe Jarecki wanted me to feel uncomfortable watching "Capturing," but if that's the case, he also effectively made me wish I had never had such a close look at such troubled lives.