Domestic Violence

‘Have you been threatened with death?’ and ‘Have you been sexually abused?’, a social worker objectively asks a woman who has just run away from home. All questions are answered affirmatively. Frederick Wiseman took his camera and mingled with a large number of women who have been abused mentally and physically by their husbands and finally had the courage to go to The Spring crisis centre in Tampa, Florida. Wiseman was present during all the stages: in the office with the emergency phone lines, during the apprehension of an offender, the arrival of the ambulance, the police interrogations, the intake interviews, therapeutic sessions, staff meetings at The Spring and the school activities for children in the crisis centre. As always with Wiseman, nobody talks to the camera, but he minutely and extensively registers how the women, after many years of humiliation, start building up a new life.