[MENTOR
screens Friday October 10th at 1:00 pm at the Chagrin Documentary
Film Festival.]
Review
by Bob Ignizio
With October and the Halloween season
there are a number of big screen horror movies vying for film-goers
attention. None of them, however, will come close to being as
horrifying as the documentary MENTOR.
The film recounts events that took place in the northeast Ohio suburb
of the title, events that can only be described as every parent's
nightmare: the suicide of a child. The real horror, though, is that
not one but five teenagers took their own lives within a relatively
short span of time. Worst of all, though, the film offers evidence that these tragedies
could have been prevented if the Mentor school system had taken
complaints of bullying directed against these students more
seriously.
The
film deals with two of the deaths in detail: Sladjana Vidovic, a
Croation girl who took her life in 2010, and Eric Mohat, a tall
skinny kid who, whether he was or wasn't, was seen by his classmates
as gay and taunted and harassed mercilessly for it until he killed
himself in 2008, just after being told by one of the bullies that he
should go home and shoot himself because no one would care.
In
both cases, the bullying was no secret, but the school evidently
chose to turn a blind eye. But while Eric hid his pain inside,
leaving his parents shocked and surprised when he committed suicide,
Sladjana told her parents, told her teachers, told guidance
counselors – just about any adult she thought might help her. Her
parents went to school officials numerous times to try and get them
to do something, but even when a football player pushed Sladjana down the
stairs, the attitude of the school system seemed to be apathetic at
best.
This
is an upsetting film to watch, but what would you expect? Director
Alix Lambert takes a straightforward journalistic approach to the
material with no stylistic affectations, which given the subject
matter seems appropriate. This is powerful enough stuff that it
doesn't need any dressing up to make an impact. There are some areas
that one might wish had been covered more – for instance, the other
3 suicides of Mentor students that took place between 2005 and 2010
are barely addressed. It would be fair to say that MENTOR
is a one-sided affair, but given that no one from the school system
would agree to be interviewed that's by necessity.
In
the absence of any official explanation of their actions by school
officials, all we have to go by is the testimony of the friends and
families of the victims, and a fairly compelling amount of documents
that seem to back that testimony up. There haven't been any further
suicides by students in the school system since 2010 that I know of,
so perhaps some lessons have been learned. Seems an awfully high
price to pay, though. 3 ½ out of 4 stars.
I'd be interested in these other 3 suicides. At the time only four were ever publicly mentioned, and of those, only 2 were actually in attendance at Mentor, as opposed to online or career programs.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. The one issue I have with the film is that it glosses over all but the two cases. Even if the parents in those other cases didn't wish to be interviewed, some basic information would have been nice.
DeleteJennifer Eyring and Josh Tennirove both died by suicide before Eric Mohat. 3 weeks after Eric was Meredith Rezak, and a few months later, Sladjana Vidovic. I personally know that four of these five were severe bulling cases. The film focused on the two families that were bringing lawsuits against the city schools, since only they were willing to talk to the press.
ReplyDeleteA more important point: check the statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control.....in their "Youth Risk Behavior Survey System", for the year 2013. One out of every 12.5 high school students in the USA attempts suicide in that year. That's the national average in serious suicide attempts....one out of every 12.5 high school students. What happened at Mentor is just a drop in the bucket to what's going on across the entire country. (Hundreds of thousands of suicide attempts, of which about 7,000 are successful every year.) Most were not physically beaten, but were victims of severe social aggression,
and we just don't have laws covering this type of behavior.)
Check this for yourself if you wish: See:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss6304.pdf?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=youth-risk-behavior-surveillance-united-states-2013-pdf
Our country is starting to define cyber bulling in terms of it being a "hate crime".....but we haven't done this in the schools yet. And so, it continues.
Thanks for the info!
Delete