Logline / Synopsis
Twenty years after being abused by his priest, a fateful reunion reverses roles and reveals love can be just as twisted and destructive as abuse.
Writer / Director’s Statement
The lingering effects of abuse and trauma are scattered throughout my projects and explored using different themes and stories. For me, art became a way to express my most profound feelings toward a specific subject matter. It provided an outlet for my fears and mistakes; therefore, each short film encapsulates a piece of my psyche derived from a particular moment throughout my life.
I was raised Roman Catholic by two loving parents on the opposite sides of the religious spectrum: A father raised by a highly devout family and taught to accept the holy word, and a mother who ran away from hers and learned to question everything. They agreed--for the sake of peace in the family--to raise the children Catholic. However, when we turned sixteen, got Confirmed, and were then seen as adults in the Church, we were free to decide if we wanted to continue practicing the faith. I chose not to.
But, at sixteen, the choice was based more on laziness rather than a conscious decision. My moral frustration and outrage developed over time and ultimately confirmed that I had made the right decision for myself. Into Temptation is the culmination of some of these personal experiences. Although the abuse in this short film is isolated, the impact and trauma of abuse are universal. Therefore, we are enabled to discuss the traumatic implications of abuse and sympathize, if not empathize, with the experiences and words shared by survivors.
Healing comes from expressing. Understanding comes from sharing. And, in the middle lies my intention for this short film.
Being raised Roman Catholic and continually inundated with all the horrid news reports of the abuse and denial within the Church, I wanted to explore the trauma of celibacy, the concept of forbidden love, and the ramifications of the abuse--but in a different way. From that seedling of a desire grew the story of an abused boy who falls in love with his molester--the story of a young man who kidnaps and confronts the Priest who abused him as a child. As I developed the story and researched sexual abuse narratives in the Catholic Church, it became critical for me to tell this particular story: a film that begins as a revenge thriller but descends into a twisted and dangerous love story that explores the consequences of sexual abuse on a minor and the lingering psychosexual effect it has on them.
To Michael, it is love. But, it's a twisted, dangerous, and warped sense of love that he can't genuinely comprehend due to his manipulation and abuse by the Priest at such a young age. The Priest was the first person outside his family who told him he loved him, and that declaration had a profound impact on young Michael. Why would someone lie about that? So, he took that word--and emotion--literally. Is it Stockholm Syndrome, or could it be real love? Who is the real victim?
I want the audience to grapple with these questions as the roles of the abuser and abused are continuously reversed throughout the story.
“Close your heart to every love but mine:
Love is as strong as death;
Passion as strong as death itself..”
— Song of Solomon 8:6
“Erotic impulses are a natural part of childhood. Kids ‘play doctor’ in rehearsal games, prefiguring a sexual awareness that sprouts in puberty and ripens in young adulthood. The latent sensuality of a child awakens to touches, caresses, and ostensibly tender overtures by an adult. Moreover, children are capable of “enjoying” sexual sensations, even amid confusions of arousal. However bewildered a child may be, if a pedophile does not use extreme force, the body transmits messages of pleasure. The great damage is psychological".”
Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children by Jason Berry
“The involvement with the kids was much more emotional. I really felt a sense of attachment, of protection, of being with them, of really genuine love.”
— Father Gilbert Gauthe
A sex abuse researcher for the U.S. Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations in Washington, Bruce Selcraig, told The Times
“Many victimized kids are walking around with a terrible time bomb ticking inside them, feeling incredible guilt.”
The Root Factor is Victimization
“An adult who molests a youngster abuses the trust on which the young rely in forming their values and ethics.”
RESEARCH
“The Sexual Disorders Clinic was under the direction of Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatrist who also had a Ph.D. in psychology. “People do not decide voluntarily what will arouse them sexually,” Berlin had written. “Biology, too, can play a role in the development of sexual interests.” In a study of forty-one men suffering from sexual disorders—the majority were either pedophiles or exhibitionists—Berlin found that twenty-nine of them had biochemical abnormalities. At the Sexual Disorders Clinic, he wrote, it was unusual to see a man who experiences recurrent pedophilic cravings in the absence of (a) a significant biological abnormality, (b) a past history of sexual involvements with an adult, or (c) both...
Diagnosing a person as a pedophile says something about the nature of his sexual desires and orientation. It says nothing whatsoever, however, about his temperament, or about traits of character (such as kindness versus cruelty, caring versus uncaring, sensitive versus insensitive, and so on). Thus, a diagnosis of pedophilia does not necessarily mean that a person is lacking in conscience, diminished in intellectual capabilities, or somehow “characterologically flawed.” In evaluating a person who has become sexually involved with a child, one needs to try to determine whether the behavior in question was a reflection of (a) psychosis, (b) poor judgement and psychological immaturity, (c) lack of conscience, (d) diminished intellect, (e) intoxication, (f) a pedophilic sexual orientation, or (g) a combination of these plus other factors. One needs to evaluate independently the nature of an individual’s sexual drives and interests, as opposed to what the person is like in terms of character, intellect, temperament, and other mental capacities.
Of men treated in the Sexual Disorders Clinic’s outpatient program, said Dr. Berlin’s assistant, Maggie Ryder, “most either come from extremely deprived beginnings —poverty, trauma, sexual activity imprinted too early—or you find biological problems, like brain damage.”
