Week Of May 1, 2006 - Mystery Week - Tue / Wed / Fri

May 2, 2006

You really couldn't ask for a better title for a movie than Jesus Camp.

And to make the film that launchs of A&E's new Indie Films business, they couldn't have picked a much better filmmaker than Boys From Baraka's Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady.

Jesus Camp compares favorably, with one major exception that I will get into in a minute, to all of the great documentaries about cultures that Americans rarely see on film and really don't understand. In this case, the focus is Becky Fischer's Kids On Fire summer camp in the ironically named Devil's Lake, North Dakota. There, she and her crew put these kids, who all seem to have already been indoctrinated in the ways of the born again (the video game that mocks evolution is a hoot), through deeper, scarier, more emotionally threatening indoctrination.

It takes Ms. Fisher all of 10 minutes to send tears streaming down the faces of some of the kids with her opening spiel… "Let me say something about Harry Potter. Warlocks are enemies of God… Had it been in the Old Testament, Harry Potter would have been put to death! You don't make heroes out of warlocks!"

Geez… doesn't she have a sense of humor? A sense of perspective? A sense of proportion?

But what if you are a believer?

That is what makes this film so interesting.

I recently revisted one of my favorite documentaries of all time, Anne Bohlen, Kevin Rafferty and James Ridgeway's 1991 look at American Nazis, Blood In The Face. (The film also happened to feature Michael Moore as an interviewer about a year after Roger & Me turned him into a celebrity.) That film premiered at Sundance - my first Sundance - and was roundly attacked by the liberal-heavy, movie-savvy crowd for not being clear enough about saying that the Neo-Nazis calling blacks and jews "mud people," closing meetings with a giddy "Zeig Heil" and guys who define Jerry Falwell as a jew because he isn't anti-Israel and teaching their kids the same over picnics were not right. They screamed that this film could be a recruiting tool. They understood how bad the Nazi positions were… but would the great unwashed?

I have never accepted that position. However large my ego, I consider it horribly condescending to the rest of the population and, in the end, I think it is always a position taken out of fear and not out of true faith in what one believes. It's no less patronizing coming from the "right side" of an argument than it is coming from the "wrong side."

Not only didn't Blood In The Face win at Sundance (it lost to Jennie Livingston's Paris Is Burning - huzzah - and Barbara Kopple's American Dream - pretty safe), but it never got to theaters (Paris Is Buring did almost $4 million the summer after Sundance a couple of years after Roger & Me did $6.7 million in the last great documentary-is-hot-at-the-box-office period), and it is long out of print on video and is not available on DVD. I put that lack of success directly on the back of political correctness.

But then again, Jesus Camp has another, more dramatic challenge. Because it is not "mud people" and swastikas. It's people who have a deep and abiding faith in Christ. And as hip as whatever room you are in may be, there are plenty of rational, intelligent people who believe in Christ, his teachings, and his power to save souls.

Becky makes an argument that seems crazy on first thought, but then makes an odd sense the more you ponder it.

"I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places because, excuse me, we have the truth!"

Crazy. But is the idea of having that kind of faith inherently bad? Wouldn't you like to have that kind of faith in something? Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to have half that much faith in your country, much less your God?

And of course, that conversation comes - in my crowd - even before the discussion about whether making light of Jesus Camp will offend those who believe deeply in the evangelical culture.

And for me, that is where there is a problem with Jesus Camp. The film opens with a radio playing over images of Middle America. And the first thing we really hear is George Bush talking about nominating Sam Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, followed by further discussion about that nomination and then, more political statements by the extreme right. Soon after, the film offers a radio-based Greek chorus to "balance" the film. He is a radio host and lawyer named Mike Papantonio, who is currently co-host of an Air America radio program called, Ring of Fire, which is co-hosted by Robert F Kennedy, Jr. There is no mention of the distinctly liberal association, which seems unfair.

This is a guy who writes in his Air America bio, "I come from a pretty strong spiritual center, but it doesn't change the way I judge people. Simply put, the Sermon on the Mount makes much more sense to me than the frenzied rantings of America's new 'religious right'. They have become an element of American politics that threatens our sense of decency as well as our democracy."

That's all fine. Personally, I agree with him. There is nothing wrong with balance. But Papantonio and the focus on the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade, which is the presumed subtext in any conversation about Alito, doesn't balance the film. It simply (and simplistically) creates an opposing voice. But the film is not otherwise about politics… unless you believe that any strong Christian religiosity is inherently political. The film is about extreme faith. And how that fits into American and world culture is a subject completely worthy of a documentary. But this is not, on the whole, that film.

Ironically, Papantonio accuses Bush of doing exactly what the filmmakers do by including Papantonio. He says, "There's this entanglement of politics with religion. What kind of lesson is that for our children?" But these children are not being taught politics in the film.

That all said, when Bush comes into the film specifically, in the mouth of Becky Fischer or others, it is completely appropriate in my opinion. He is a huge hero to this group. He is one of the them, they believe. And their sense that he has created acceptance for them is completely worthy of being in the film. Again, my objection is the use of Papantonio as an intellectual condom. It's like Ewing & Grady need to wink to their constituents to make sure that everyone knows that they really don't like these people they are documenting.

And that is a shame, in my eyes, because the film is so compelling in so many ways. There are, as in the best moments of Michael Moore's film, unforgettable characters doing unforgettable things. The 9-year-old prostheletizing to a blonde in a skintight pink top at another aisle at the bowling alley after praying for God's help with her bowling. God has special plans for the blonde… but we who aren't so focused as little Rachel can only think of the special plans the blonde's date has for her in the pick-up truck. And isn't that the point that Becky Fischer is trying to make?

There is Levi, who claims to have been born again at five. There is 10-year-old Tory, who dances wildly to Christian rock and tries to remember not to dance with her flesh, but instead as a tribute to God. We will watch both of these kids, from my perspective, try hard to follow and then to lead at camp. Are they inspired by God or their desperate need for love from their parents and others that they can only attain through showing strong religious interest?

Thing is, the conversation is a bit rhetorical for me and probably for most of you who are reading this. But there is a humanity in this film, as there was in Grady and Ewing's film about kids from the ghetto whose lives are changed dramatically by their journey to African. The difference is that judging those troubled kids based on their problems in the American underclass gets a finger wagged in your face and judging - or even making fun - of kids who participate in Jesus Camp gets a slap on the back. But even that is okay with me. Go for the Rorschach test! You don't need to preach to the converted or to protect the believers who you disagree with.

Cut those 10-15 minutes of politics out of the film and no question, it would be one of the very best films of 2006. As it is, it is still one of the best films of the year. Even without the political content, you could practically change the name to "Why They Hate Us" and send it to every MoveOn.org member. It does what Paradise Now and Munich did for us last year. But it won't quite risk going all the way and really letting us think for ourselves. And it's too bad.

Still, it is the kind of film that I will throw into the DVD player and play for friends anytime someone comes over and wants to watch some TV. It is bittersweet and familiar and really, quite brilliant to experience. When the tears well up in Tory's eyes and she in so overcome with "the spirit" that she seems like she is going to literally explode with emotion, and you are thinking, "This is a child," you can't help but to make a choice for yourself. You can't help but to ponder the complexity of faith and what we do to and for our children. Some will be happy to have an ally in the viewing in Mike Papantonio. But this liberal thinks that if you can't take a screening of Jesus Camp without a verbal nightlite to comfort you, you are already too weak not to succumb to what Becky Fischer believes that you will either believe or burn in hell for not believing. Muscle up - and I mean real emotional and intellectual muscle, not endless Randy Rhoades rhetoric - my left-leaning friends. The fight for freedom is just as hard now as it was hundreds of years ago. It's not for sissies (though it is for gay people).

E Me: And the beat goes on....

Week Of April 3, 2006 - Life In the Bubble - Mon / Wed / Fri
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