To most of their neighbors in wealthy Long Island, the Friedmans appeared to be the All-American suburban family. Arnold Friedman was an award-winning high school teacher who diligently taught computer and piano lessons in the evenings, and his wife, Elaine, was a stay-at-home mom raising their three artistic, intelligent sons, David, Seth and Jesse.

But this bland scenario is not the stuff that makes sensational cinema -- especially Sundance award winners like this one -- so it's no surprise that we soon learn there is something fishy about the Friedman family. This "fishiness" was exposed during a turkey dinner, when police officers show up at the Friedman's front door on Thanksgiving Day 1987 with a search warrant entitling them to overturn the house in pursuit of child pornography. And boy, did they find it.

But more surprising than the discovery of magazines with names like "Jail Bait" was the arrest of Arnold and his 18-year-old son Jesse, both accused of sodomy by dozens of students from Mr. Friedman's computer classes.

Director Andrew Jarecki originally contacted David, a professional party clown, because he was making a lighthearted movie about New York clowns. When Jarecki learned of David's documented demise of his family, he ditched his original plan to create "Capturing the Friedmans."

The documentary is disturbing, but the very existence of the footage is downright bizarre. It is extremely strange that family members -- even those who value the arts -- were comfortable with a camcorder in their faces during explosive and gut-wrenching meltdowns. It's even more odd that they would fork over the footage to Jarecki, unless they hoped he would right the family name.

Jarecki masterfully combines footage from David's video, interviews with family members (except Seth, who refused participation), news clips from original broadcasts and mini-scenes created for the film that add a welcome infusion of black humor. He leads us to believe that neither Jesse nor Arnold are guilty of sexual abuse, rather sacrificial scapegoats made to look guilty by the media.

It appears that Arnold Friedman, who died five years ago in jail, seems to be a victim of legal misconduct and media hype. Most will agree that there simply isn't enough evidence to have convicted the Friedmans for molesting their students.

However, Arnold does admit that he is a pedophile who had an affair with two boys while on vacation years before the arrests. This stirs an emotional split for viewers and is the very crux of the film: Can you feel empathy for a man who gets a life sentence for an act he didn't do even though he committed a similar crime years earlier?

"Capturing the Friedmans" opens Fri., July 11 at Landmark's Oriental Theatre.