Day 143

FILM CRITIC 

04 - A DOCUMENTARY

JONESTOWN: THE WOMEN BEHIND THE MASSACRE

I have to be in the right mood for a documentary, but I do watch them fairly often. I've always been a bit fascinated by cults and what makes people lead them and join them. I've watched a few things about Jim Jones and the Jonestown massacre, and when I saw Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre on Kanopy, I knew I needed to watch it!

Jim Jones was a charismatic preacher and set up the Peoples Temple. Ultimately, he convinced hundreds of people to leave their lives and move to Jonestown in Guyana, and set up a commune there. When people decided to leave the commune and Jones' cultish leadership, he encouraged those left behind to kill themselves by drinking a concoction of Kool-Aid and cyanide. 

In this documentary, the focus is on the women who helped Jim Jones to lead over 900 people to commit suicide. Although he was married to Marceline, he managed to seduce other women within the cult who became part of his inner circle, deciding what would happen to the cult members.

This documentary shows footage of the aftermath of the suicide massacre in Jonestown, along with sound recordings of Jim Jones telling people to drink the Kool-Aid. Interviews also take places with ex members of the cult, and one of Jim's sons who would have been caught up in the massacre if it hadn't been for the fact that he was playing on the Jonestown basketball team away that day. One person interviews was the sister of two women in the cult who were infatuated by Jim Jones, and most certainly instigated the whole ordeal. Actors read out letters and passages from these women's dairies, making this whole thing more real.

Naively, I thought Jim Jones did it all. But it's obvious that he would have needed help. It was just shocking to find out that so many women were behind the horrors. This film added a new dimension to something that I already knew a fair bit about.

07 - AN ARTHOUSE MOVIE

TASTE OF CHERRY

I wasn't really sure what an arthouse movie was, so did a bit of Googling and found that I've watched a few arthouse movies without even knowing it! (Midsommar, The Platform, The Lobster, It Follows, Parasite, Black Swan, The Babadook ... and more). So I did a bit more research to try and find something suitable, and stumbled across Taste of Cherry on Kanopy. 

This is an Iranian film, with English subtitles. It's about a man, Mr Badii, who spends his time driving around, looking for someone who is willing to help him. He meets a number of different people, and he takes them all to the same place and asks them all the same thing. He wants someone to come back to that spot at 6am the next morning and call his name. If he answers, he wants help getting out of the makeshift grave he has already dug for himself. If he doesn't answer, he wants them to shovel soil over him and bury him there. They will be paid regardless of the outcome.

This is a very slow moving film. Not much happens. But it's extremely deep and dark. It poses a lot of questions but doesn't necessarily answer them.

The set up of the film is extremely basic, and at points it even feels unscripted. The dialogue, even though I don't understand it, feels awkward and uncomfortable in some places, almost reflecting the general storyline. I want to say I enjoyed this film, but because of the subject matter the word enjoy doesn't feel right. But this was certainly a film that made me think and will probably live in my head for a while.