JESUS CAMP (2006)

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You can teach anyone anything, if you get them early enough.

Show me the boy and I’ll give you the man.

Becky Fisher, an evangelical pastor in Dakota, runs a religious summer camp for children to indoctrinate them in the word of God. This documentary follows her during the summer of 2005 as she prepares for the camp that year.

The camp is called ‘Kids on Fire School of Ministry’ and is located in Lakewood Park, at Devil’s Lake in North Dakota. These people are so entrenched in the literal word of the Bible they obviously can not see how putting your camp in a place called Devil’s Lake might be a problem.

When talking about how open (read vulnerable) children are Fisher says “They are so useable in Christianity” she goes on to talk about the ‘threat’ of Islam and how the children are being trained in camps overseas to kill.

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

As you get to see more of Fisher you realise how massively egocentric she is and how bat-shit crazy she is. There are far too many people out there who mis-use their energy and power to nurture their own agenda without any care or concern for the people they affect.

The film is interlaced with interviews with, a moderate Christian radio presenter who feels that the evangelicals are eschewing logic for blind faith and indoctrination and causing great damage to the religion.

Indoctrination (read brain contamination) is used on these children, empty vessels into which grown ups pour their backwardness; these are broken adults full of their own fears and insecurities. They say that you get the parents you need….

“Let me say something about Harry Potter……….Warlocks are enemies of God….and
I don’t care what kind of hero they are, they’re an enemy of God and had it been in the Old Testament, Harry Potter would have been PUT TO DEATH.”

Clapping

“You don’t make heroes out of warlocks!”

-Pastor Becky Fisher, ladies and gentlemen.

This is a form of torture, an emotional spin, spin, spinning out of control. The placing of politics and warped ideologies into religion has long been a scourge on our race and skews the agendas, complicating and muddying the message.

It’s hard to listen to the kid’s spouting out the nonsense they have been taught and they truly believe what they’re saying because it has been deeply programmed into their minds and this is dangerous. Having recently watched Religulous it’s easy to see the dangers of shutting down open debate, those that think they know and stick to that unwaveringly, not even contemplating any other way.

Telling the kids that there are 60 million children of God who are not here due to abortion and then showing them intricate, fully formed dolls at 7 weeks old and passing them off as truth, well, who wouldn’t be pissed off at that and so the seeds are sown and lives are destroyed by idiotic beliefs that permeate peoples thinking.

It’s all about the long game, mould them while they’re young to become the soldiers of tomorrow. Not much different from the extremist terror camps around the world that are on the news regularly.

Pastor Ted Haggard, the president of the National Associations of Evangelicals and friend and advisor to George Bush Jr, “We’ve decided that the Bible is the word of God, we don’t need to have a general assembly about what we believe, it’s written in the bible….alright, so we don’t have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity, it’s written in the bible.”

So, there.

Ironically, it came to light soon after this film was released that Ted had been involved with male prostitutes and meth-amphetamine thus disgracing him and forcing him to quit as his role of Pastor. He has apparently been cured of his homosexual tendencies………Yeah, right.

The teachings are the same in the fundamental religious philosophy, train the kids to be warriors, for God. If you have that on your side, terrible things can, have and will happen.

For many evangelicals in America there should be no separation between state and church.

The even-handed way the directors, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, put the film together, at least as far as the lack of external narrative commentary, is commendable, but once the facts are shown it seems quite obvious which side any thinking mind should gravitate towards. This film was nominated for an Best Documentary Oscar the year it came out and the controversy surrounding it forced Becky Fisher to close the camp. This is a good thing.

Too long have grown-ups been allowed to poison the minds of their children and the damage it causes knows no bounds. If judgement is coming, then it’s coming hard for these monsters.

This documentary demands to be seen even to the converted as it highlights the destruction of a generation and we’ll be reaping the rewards in several years, then we shall be able to see the root cause of this nonsense. Let’s stop before it becomes too late. Please.

3.5/5

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BLANCANIEVES (2012)

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A silent version of Snow White set in Seville, Spain in the 1920’s and arriving just one year after The Artist did so well on the world stage. This tells the tale of Snow White, her dwarves, the wicked queen and the world of bull-fighting. Based on the original tale by the brothers Grimm this is a beautifully shot, well-acted film that veers away from the Disney version.

Having recently re-read the original Grimm tale one can see how the ‘Who’s been sleeping in my bed’ originated in here and was then later utilized in the Goldilocks story.

The lack of dialogue is refreshing, the director Pablo Berger makes his second feature and works his magic to bring this version to life.

Carmencita (Sofia Ora & Macarena Garcia) is the daughter of a famous bull-fighter, Antonio Villalta (Daniel Gimenéz Cacho) who is paralysed in the ring during a fight. Carmencita’s mother dies in child-birth and Antonio remarries the wicked, Encarna, played by Maribel Verdú (Pan’s Labyrinth and Y Tu Mama Tambien), who cruelly treats Antonio and carries on an sado-masochistic affair with a huntsman. When Carmencita becomes a teenager, Encarna is filled with jealousy at the young girl’s beauty and sends the Huntsman to kill her and bring back her heart.

Snow White escapes and finds herself in the residence of a travelling theatre show populated by dwarves who tour a bull-fighting show.

This film is filled with charm and beautiful story-telling and the use of silence gives room for a narrative usually reliant on dialogue. This frees Berger to tell the story with pictures, mise en scene and performance. This is definitely not a children’s film as there be darkness involved, like the old fairy tales, life and death are a major part of it and mores the joy. Protecting the little ones from some of the harsh realities of life may work for a while but eventually they’re going to find out. Many of us were told these darker stories when we were little and it did us little damage. There lies both tragedy and joy in life and these tales were told for a reason and usually didn’t pull any punches.

The score by Alfonso Villalonga sweeps us away into a world of magical-realism and is well-composed and thought out.

Whilst not being the best film I’ve seen this year it is a welcome addition to the modern world of cinema and shows us that there is still life in silent movies.

3/5

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