The Pelicot case explained by his daughter

They say it was Caroline Darian, Gisèle Pelicot's daughter, who suggested to her mother that she make her story public, months before the trial began. The idea that shame should change sides was an initiative of the executioner's daughter, the predator Dominique Pelicot. In fact, Darian is another of his victims because her photographs also appeared in the rapist's image archives, but in her case the abuse could not be proven.

After the trial and her father's conviction, Darian published a book, an intimate diary of the entire process, where she explained her relationship with her father, her mother's years of suffering and the trauma of it all. Now, the documentary has been released and can be found on Movistar+. Chemical submission: the case of Gisèle Pelicot It is part of her new fight beyond the family drama: to raise awareness about abuses perpetrated by the effect of substances that nullify the will and conscience of the victim. Caroline Darian emphasizes more on medical professionals, because the dozens of doctors her mother consulted were unable to diagnose or find an explanation for her health problems: loss of memory and consciousness, difficulties in speaking, fainting, drowsiness, unjustified physical exhaustion. In the documentary, Caroline Darian is the common thread, although with somewhat weaker results than in the book. She tells us some of the most sordid aspects of her father's predatory strategies. A few minutes after starting we see a fragment of the video that Dominique Pelicot tried to record in a supermarket, putting the mobile phone under the skirts of the customers. It is the moment when the security guard stops him. Getting caught was what allowed us to discover his atrocities. For those who have not read the book, the documentary provides answers to some questions that people had about Pelicot's conduct. And some gruesome details such as the protocols that the man established with the other rapists to offer to his wife once they contacted him. With the intention of becoming a more generic account of chemical submission, the documentary also includes the testimony of other rape victims. However, the production tries to open so many fronts that it ends up being very superficial and pointless. It neither serves to explain the Pelicot case well, nor is it incisive with the commitment to disseminate. Even Caroline Darian's meeting with another victim is cold and improvised, and reproduces a fleeting conversation where there is neither the tact nor the emotion that the viewer can expect from an encounter like this. It is obvious that the great documentary of the Pelicot case is yet to be made.