Who among us didn’t piss off that grumpy old guy down the street when we were younger? In some cases, you have no control, because some people are simply not cut out for suburban life and will scare the neighborhood kids by roaring, "Get off my lawn!" Any time a forgetful child sets foot on their precious possessions. By doing this, they set themselves up as a target when it comes time to throw toilet paper at someone's house or jingle ditch. No one expected that the witch next door would make good on her threat.

Director Gita Ganderbilt's sarcastically titled "Perfect Neighbors" focuses on the shocking case of Susan Lorinz, a Florida woman who was a whiny woman who was accused of murdering Clinton. T. Eastwood was dissatisfied with the invasion. It's a flippant way to depict the real-life tragedy that led to the death of African-American single mother Ajike "AJ" Owens, but the movie has a way of supporting a violent solution. Not this time, it shifted allegiance to community protests by locals upset that the confused white gunman was not being tried like a black man.

Formally innovative and philosophically necessary, Ganderhill's intense true-crime documentary reconstructs the dispute—from the first 911 call to the court's final verdict—drawn almost entirely from official footage , most of which were taken from police body cameras. The resulting thriller unfolds like a cross between "Paranormal Activity" and "End of Watch," leaving viewers free to draw their own conclusions from the evidence on camera. (The emergence of such material would revolutionize true-crime filmmaking, as would the Oscar-nominated, New Yorker-produced documentary short "The Affair.")

Yet unfair self-defense and “stand your ground” laws have long been used to excuse killers whose deep-rooted (and often uncensored) racism devalues ​​the lives of victims they view as monstrous or inferior. That's one of the many subtexts that emerges from "Lownds County and the Trail of Black Power," an emotional and thought-provoking social experiment from the Emmy-winning director whose film also serves as a touchstone for viewers' own prejudices. .

Ganderfield's fascinating project has many layers to it, one of which is a surprisingly resonant look at the irreconcilable differences between neighbors—a situation that often appears on trashy daytime television but rarely in people's hearts. Described in the movie Dear. Such conflicts rarely resolve themselves and often escalate to a vindictive, even fatal outcome (my partner once had his car's brake lines cut by the guy next door who was illegally running a noisy auto repair business out of his garage shop).

Ironically, it was Lorinz (the potentially dangerous party) who kept calling 911. Police first responded in February 2022, interviewing multiple neighbors after Lorinz accused Owens of throwing a "no trespassing" sign at her. Breaking with traditional doctor's technique, Ganderbilt did not conduct new interviews or attempt to reconstruct events, instead using police body camera footage to present the situation. “That lady is always annoying other people’s kids,” one neighbor said, pointing to the empty lots where black and white kids liked to play and the extreme annoyance of their neighbors who were working from home. "She's bossy," one little girl said, calling Lorinz an angry "Karen."

Sociologically speaking, the Karen phenomenon—where white women use their social position and privilege to determine and demand how others behave—can be difficult to pin down because of the invisible dynamics at play. It’s no secret that Black Americans are at a much greater risk of being accidentally (or even intentionally) shot by police. Did Lorinz realize that every time she called 911, she could endanger her neighbor's life? Could it be that she was counting on this? Weaponization of the police by some citizens remains one of the unspoken ways in which this institution is used not only to enforce the law but also to purge the remnants of white supremacy.

What we don't learn from "Perfect Neighbors" is what's going on in Lorinz's head when the local kids are so loud that she can't concentrate. Multiple police interviews revealed she yelled the "N" word and other slurs at her petty tormentors. But then her own surveillance footage showed the children deliberately taunting her and shaking their butts in her direction.

None of this was witnessed by the police, whose every word was recorded (including the words chosen to describe Lorinz, who came across as even more obnoxious than her neighbors). With each call, the crime had subsided by the time police arrived - but when Lorinz introduced guns into the equation, none of that justified what ended up happening.

This was the trickiest part of Ganderhill's reconstruction, as the filming took place off-camera, although the director did use audio recorded from a doorbell camera across the street to give the audience a sense of confrontation - very different from the real scene. The life-or-death scenario that Lorinz describes.

Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions to this disagreement. Still, one wonders why the irritable renter - who claims he has the right to "enjoy your property in peace and quiet" - wanted police involved in the first place. That, coupled with the role of guns in her response, should give viewers plenty of discussion and debate. Meanwhile, body camera footage reveals Lorinz's most insidious tool: She distorted the truth and tried to manipulate authority figures when they arrived. Even though there's been a lot of criticism of the police in our culture lately, they seem like the good guys here. If Owens had been the man on that fateful night, maybe things would have been different.