No Lies

No Lies is so pointedly reflexive, the actress is so self-conscious and conversational and the dialogue unfolds with such natural awkwardness and pacing into the actresses' disclosure that she has been recently raped that it's hard to image that the film is anything other than a documentary. It raises several ethical issues, of course, to learn that it is not a documentary. The audience feels puzzled, foolish, tricked or emotionally manipulated after, or as, the credits for the film roll. Besides the expected questins of ethical dilema and responsibility when presenting "fiction" as "real" - there is an additional layer of concern surrounding authenticity when put in the context of rape and believability. No Lies does an excellent job of portraying how rape survivors feel, and often react, to assault. It presents also, an almost all-too real account of how policie authorities, other women, hospitals, and society in general treat rape survivors or "victims" as they were called in the era the film was made. It seems clear to me that these systems and responses must have been well-researched to make the film; the part of the dialogue where the actress mentions that another woman walked by and didn't stop to help her reminded me in part of the Kitty Genovese case from 1964, that took place in New York. No Lies is often used in feminist film classes, and in training/educational settings because it so perfectly captures the responses of survivors and certainly impacts audiences in a profound and sympathetic manner - at least until the credits roll. My question, though, is whether or not there is an additional layer of responsiblity or at least consideration that must be made when one of the major problems that women (primarily) face when reporting rape and sexual harassment is believability. In addition to victim-blaming (which the 'filmaker' illustrated perfectly, women often (and certainly were at the time the film was made) simply not believed and listened to - so does making a "fake", "not-true" fabricated documentary about a fabricated rape add another layer to the dilemma? Does it compound the issue of believability and does the "fake-out" of the film detract and distract from the issue at hand?