A crew (or perhaps only one person?) follows a few young american mormon missionaires, for 18 months, in a foreign country; my neigbouring Finland. About sprirituality, finding a purpose and coming of age.
To me this documentary is captivating from start to finish, and I learned a lot. Both about the Mormons and about spiritual wanderings more generally. It is v e r y finlandish in style, meaning slow, subtle and tolerant to silence. There is so much going on, but there is nothing spelled out to you. It is not a documentary about the history and practises of the Church of the LDS, it is a portrait of some young people living inside and through that system.
The best documentaries (or, at least the documentaries that stay with me and become works of art, rather than mere education) do not only hand you facts, but put up a mirror. By getting into the minds, hopes and spiritual aspirations of the persons portrayed, with glimpses into the larger social network they are a part of, the viewer is given an opportunity to see their own life and aspirations in a different angle. And perhaps grow a bit, themselves.
Before seeing this movie, I admit, I had a lot of prejudice about the mormon religion and its followers. I still do, probably, and perhaps some of that prejucice would only be set into conviction with further insight into their practise and/or social structure. But as of right now I am humbled in my perspective. I don´t really know what I expected, but what I found were fellow spiritual travellers. And I know I didn´t expect that, obviously, because if I did, this documentary wouldn´t have surprised me like it did.
I suppose I thought I would see numb minds and hollow words and gestures. Fear and repression maybe, or at least a will-less confomity. Shame on me. I do not share their particular beliefs or practises, but after seeing this documentary I fully respect them as means to a spiritual path for the practitioner. And I see the practitioners as my brothers and sisters exploring the landscape of Spirit. That surprised me, and I like being surprised.
It is also, of course, a film about a Rite of passage on a communal level. Something that is to a large extent going missing in modern, secular societies. These youngsters grow up in a community where that is a natural part of the experience of Life.
The crew follows the featured persons closely, figuratively as well as literally, but is made invisible and inaudible in the editing. It´s like they´re not there, still the film emantes this strong sense of intimate trust between the makers and the participants. It´s really nicely done and ads to a sense for the viewer of getting close to the participants.
But there is one scene that makes me question the crew´s honesty, and wonder if that trust has been betrayed:
Towards the end there is a group picture with these smiling young missionaries, but with the screen dominated with the sign "creating the future of HEL" (they are on the Helsinki airport). I sort of expected them to make evil eye signs and stick their tounges out like metal fans, but none of them acknowledges the sign. And they didn´t really all strike me as people who would enjoy a joke like that either... Was this frame done with their consent to the joke? I hope so, because if it was done without their knowledge, I feel that would be a breach of trust and a stain on this otherwise flawless film.
