Detainment Is In No Way Sympathetic To The Killers

Normally, when the Oscar nominations are being announced, and an Irish film features, there is widespread joy and positivity here in Ireland. However, when Irish director Vincent Lambe and Darren Mahon received a nomination for Best Short (Live Action) for their short film Detainment, the response was muted. And that is presumably because the nomination is seen, especially in the UK, as being highly controversial.

Detainment is based around the now infamous 1993 murder of two year old James Bulger, by two ten year-old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. The facts of what happened are not in dispute. After abducting Bulger from a shopping centre in Merseyside, U.K., the two schoolboys led the toddler to a disused railway station, where they tortured him and murdered him. The injuries inflicted on Bulger were so vicious and numerous that a pathologist said not a single one could be isolated as causing the child’s fatal wound. It was an extraordinarily brutal murder.

The case became notorious both because of the horrific nature of the crime, and the very young age of the two murderers. The killers were charged as adults at the time, because 10 years of age remains the threshold for full criminal responsibility in the UK. Subsequently, the judge overruled the usual anonymity offered to child criminals, because, in his words at the time, "the public interest overrode the interest of the defendants.”

The boys were ordered to be detained “at her majesty’s pleasure” – meaning that they could be incarcerated indefinitely. However after eight years, a parole board ruled that they were no longer a threat to public safety and they were both released. Both were banned from ever returning to Liverpool and given new identities at a reported cost of £1.5 million to the UK state.

Since his release, according to tabloid reports, Jon Venables – apparently living in Australia under the new name given to him by the UK authorities – has twice been arrested and charged with possession of images of child sex abuse.

FALLEN ON DEAF EARS

Vincent Lambe’s film Detainment uses actors to recreate some of Venables and Thompson’s police interviews, including parts of their confession. Nearly all of the script quotes the police transcripts verbatim. The film also recreates parts of the day that Bulger was murdered, showing Venables and Thompson leading the toddler away from the Strand shopping centre and down to the railway station, though none of the extreme violence which killed him is shown onscreen.

The film shows the 10 year-old Jon Venables in great distress during the interviews, crying and gasping for his parents, while Robert Thompson comes across as more stoic and less apologetic, as he attempts to shift a lot of blame onto Venables. Obviously, the combination of knowing what the ten year olds have done and seeing them struggle to accept and process the enormity of it makes for extremely difficult viewing.

As readers of Hot Press will already be aware, the family of James Bulger have strongly objected to the film, criticising it for, as they see it, sympathising with the murderers. And they have also criticised Vincent Lambe for not consulting with them in any way before making the film.

In a public statement, Bulger’s mother Denise Fergus said: “I cannot express how disgusted and upset I am at this so-called film has been made and now nominated for an Oscar. It's one thing making a film like this without contacting or getting permission from James’ family, but another to have a child re-enact the final hour of James's life before he was brutally murdered and making myself and my family have to relive this all over again."

A petition to remove the film from Oscar contention received over 90,000 signatures, and Fergus has appealed again to the Academy not to honour or reward the film.

So far, however, the petition has fallen on deaf ears, as the film has indeed received an Academy nomination. This is consistent with the international acclaim already heaped on Detainment, which won the best short film award at the Cannes Film Festival and the grand prix at the Odense festival in Denmark.

Lambe, who is interviewed in the current ‘Hot for 2019’ issue of Hot Press (with Idles and Wild Youth on separate covers), also released a lengthy statement on Twitter, saying “I have enormous sympathy for the Bulger family and I am extremely sorry for any upset the film may have caused them. With hindsight, I am sorry I did not make Mrs. Fergus aware of the film.

“The film is in no way sympathetic to the killers,” he adds, countering accusations in the UK press, "and does not attempt to make excuses for their horrendous actions. There has been criticism that the film ‘humanises’ the killers, but if we cannot accept that they are human beings, we will never begin to understand what could have driven them to commit such a horrific crime. The only way to prevent something similar from happening in the future is if we understand the cause of it.”

As a result of the criticisms that have been levelled at the film, there are currently no plans to screen Detainment in the U.K.

• Vincent Lambe is interviewed by Peter McGoran, in the latest issue of Hot Press – which hit the streets today.