Lover, Liar, Predator
BBC2/iPlayer
****
The Beauty Queen and the Catfish, Matched with a Predator, Catching the Tinder Predator, and now Lover, Liar, Predator. There has been a run of such documentaries recently, each dealing in some way with man’s inhumanity to woman, and all having some connection with Scotland.
Taken together, they represent a powerful indictment of the crimes covered, the men who commit them, and the failure of the justice system to deal with such behaviour. In the case of this feature-length documentary produced by DSD Films for BBC Scotland, the perpetrator was Borders-resident Aaron Swan, and it would take more than two decades before he was brought to justice.
As the interviews with four survivors of his crimes show, red flags were raised all along the line. Swan’s behaviour was consistent. His victims were young, lonely, and lacking in confidence. At first he would smother them with attention, make them feel cared for, but then the abuse would start. Before they knew it, they were afraid to stay and terrified to leave. As one said, “The strangest things become normal when you know Aaron Swan.” When the women did try to report the abuse, they were too often dismissed by the police and other authorities.
Director-producer Marta Garcia Aliaga uses the time and space well, allowing each woman to speak about her experiences in full while driving the narrative towards a conclusion. Patterns begin to emerge, and realisations dawn. Then the best story of all begins as the survivors unite to put Swan in the dock.
The film ends on an up mood, and rightly so. The women here are eloquent, determined, courageous and dignified. There is no attempt to hide their identities - a welcome shift from the days when women were filmed in shadow, as though they were the ones who had done something wrong.
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The option not to reveal one’s identity should always be there, however. The otherwise outstanding Beauty Queen and the Catfish opted to have survivors in what looked like wigs - an odd, pointless move that distracted from what they were saying.
For all the positivity on show, it’s impossible to leave Lover, Liar, Predator, and the rest of these films, without feeling a genuine sadness. Fury, too, though that’s a given. What has happened to these women that they fell prey to such men? How does a boy grow up to become that way? And why are we so fascinated by these stories?
As invaluable as films like Lover, Liar, Predator can be in encouraging others to seek help, their makers cannot just stop at the point when a case is over. A look at the headlines all around us shows the problem is not going away. If anything, social media has taken it up several grim notches.
The answer is not more of the same type of films, but documentaries that explore the bigger questions instead of touching on them lightly, or hoping the message otherwise gets through. Otherwise, we’ll be back here soon enough watching another film with a snappy title and good intentions, but which ultimately misses the mark.
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