Jesus Camp (2006)

Focus: Evangelical Christians and their kids, particularly the kids that attend Becky Fischer's summer camp, Kids on Fire.

 

Honestly, I don't know how to review this movie. Much like when I didn't want to review Deliver Us from Evil, I find it difficult to assess the film critically while disengaging the subject matter. And the more I think about it, the more it seems necessary in order to look at the filmmaking itself. The subject matter is so polemical and so politicized that it is difficult to say word one against the film without seeming to come across as in support of what we see happening to these kids on screen. But the two aren't related. I don't want these children to have their childhoods stolen from them, traded for a combination of lies and half-truths instead of a genuine relationship with God. We see kids learning to be pro-life before they are even able to understand from whence babies come, and the next thing we knew they are getting red tape placed over their mouths with 'LIFE' written across it in big block letters. Thanks to a clever bit of editing, we have no idea what the symbolism is or why they are doing it. We just go from telling kids that abortion is bad to taking away their speech.

 

Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady choose a target ripe for mockery, and they simply allow the participants to be their ridiculous selves. They take advantage of the few kids they do focus on (12 year-old Levi, 10 year-old Rachel) much in the same way that Becky and her ilk to, although to a far less shameful degree. Handily, radio commentator Mike Papantonio frames each new segment with precise and intelligent monologues on what is really happening to middle America. When all else fails, they throw up a couple of captions.

 

See? I told you I didn't know how to review this movie.

 

Maybe it's a result of putting myself through every episode of Studio 60 or maybe that it's the fact that I grew up in a fairly easy-going Baptist community, but it seems to me that taking aim at Evangelic Christians is about the same as trying to hit the broad side of a barn. There's no feeling of exposé to this documentary. The best parts come when the subjects try to deny that their movement is in any way political, all the while asking the children to ask God to bless Bush or to pray to reclaim the courts.

 

I guess the problem is how thoroughly disheartening the whole endeavour is. The film is aimed squarely at lefties and liberals such as myself, who can come out and have a laugh at other people's insanity. Other audience members were busting a gut while I retreated into my seat, feeling ever sorrier for this children who are home schooled into believing, for reasons unrelated to religion, that global warming isn't real. Ewing and Grady are preaching to the converted, but to what end? Deliver Us from Evil, for all the squeamishness over the subject matter, gives us something to easily hate and attack. Things aren't as cut-and-dried with this doc. Once we see what's happening to these kids, where do we go? B+