Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus

To amend the other comment, it is not primarily Louisiana, but North/Central/East Florida up to North Georgia/South Carolina area. I lived 23 years in Gainesville, FL, my master's thesis required me to extensively examine Southern Appalachian culture, I know people who have had Harry Crews for a professor, I have read much southern literature, and I am familiar with the Cracker culture. I only state this to show I am more researched with the "true" South. It is a good and rather accurate documentary but biased in that it focuses on finding out the meaning of something. Thus the documentary is not an accurate portrayal of the entire South but of sub-cultures to the South. Another good look at more Eastern Florida is "Vernon, FL," showing a different sub-culture well. The other review comment's enough and is accurate but to note it is hard for any one documentary or film to capture what the South is considering how regional and place specific traditions, religions, and lifestyles are, so don't take the film as "truth" creating a stereotype. A lot of behavior examined in this documentary comes from, in my opinion, boredom, difficult financial conditions, and the heat and humidity. Not a rather atypical result of these either I might add. Anybody staying anytime in any of these places will soon experience emotions contributing to this behavior and cultural identity. Other than that, it is worth watching if you are at all interested in documentaries, aspects of southern culture, or are just interested in people.

Being an import into the South, I was mesmerized by the opening scenes of this movie, and was filled with a unique representation of the Gothic South. I was displeased though to read the comments here with a clear misunderstanding of the movie was trying to portray. The movie is about the South, not about a mindless devotion to Pentecostalism. Although that is portrayed in the movie, I feel it's important to understand that the South, unlike other parts of the country is a place full of the clash of religion and "hell-raising." The Church is only one element in this film as the other elements of ghoulish beauty, good-natured people, and a love for simplistic things seems to have been overlooked by other commentaries here on IMDb. I just felt inclined to mention the movie is more about THE South, than just a pocket of the Church, and it's notable that the comments have all come from Yankees, who after seeing this movie, might not still have a clue about the charming,haunting beauty of the South.

Strongly recommended. I would ruminate, based on close examination of my late grandmother, that there's a ragged wound in the center of all white Southerners still oozing over the unrepentant evil of slavery. Nowadays, that would manifest as what Jim White calls in 'Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus,' "a loneliness for God," a vague dread that nothing can ever really be made right in this world. Add to this, the muttered self-loathing of all rural, poor America, stumbling the parapet between fundamentalism and crystal meth. The South is just more lyrically insane than Nebraska. To this special purpose, some call the songs of White, Johnny Dowd, and Brett and Rennie Sparks (all whom perform splendidly in the movie) 'Gothic,' but Amazon files it under 'Americana,' with Twain, with Bierce, and with Gee's Bend, Alabama, an appellation more honest and, in the end, the proper place for this movie.

I saw this movie late at night myself as well and it's a mesmerizing film. I am from Canada, and the world portrayed in this film seems like from a far away distant country. Substitute Christianity for Islam or Hinduism or whatever crazy religion you want and there's not much difference, extremely poor, uneducated emotional people being whipped into a frenzy by charismatic preachers. It is fascinating but also disturbing. Jim White travels around describing this strange surreal world of misfits and fringe elements of an unforgiving society. But he looks at them with pity and sympathy, and it made me have a different view on these people. They live extremely hard lives in a land of obscene riches, if that isn't enough to drive anybody to the church, I don't know what is. Everything is black and white as one interviewed inmate describes "you're either an outlaw our your in the church", you're either going to hell, burning forever or you will be saved and go to heaven. They go to church, twirl around, speak in tongues and basically act completely crazy and if this were done anywhere else, they would be locked up, but in the church it's okay, which makes it kind of cool. It's kind of a enclosed crazy house where go absolutely bonkers and then (presumably) go back into the world and live a normal life. (Kind of reminds me of that episode of Star Trek with "Landrew", where the population goes completely looney at exactly noon for about 10 minutes every day). Of course there is the odd person, liked Jim describes, that goes absolutely nuts and stays that way. The saddest thing is these people and their leaders seem to be dictating a lot of decisions in the U.S. government right now, and after seeing this movie, the thought of that will send a shiver up your spine.

Interspersed among these scenes is some really beautiful music, some by Jim White himself, it's adds a really nice touch to all the grimness that you witness throughout this film. There is beauty here, there is a rawness of emotion that can express itself in religious fervor or musical incarnations. It almost seems like the message is to leave the former for the latter.

This is a nice companion piece to "The True Meaning of Pictures" a film by Shelby Lee Adams, a photographer who takes an unflinching look at the deep south. He goes even a little deeper than this film, interviewing the snake handlers and the strychnine drinkers, the REALLY wacked out elements of this society.

Anyway, if this subject interests you, seek these two films out, they are honest, unexploitive, unflattering and not condescending looks that the deep south.

Grew up in similar places, but its a bit skewed. Don't really think you can get the whole of the South by going to a prison, some roadside bars and some Pentecostal churches. Its basically rubbernecking anthropology, searching for and finding the extreme without bothering to mention that it is the extreme...

Not every southerner is poor, or has to either be a holy-roller or a heathen. Southerners generally are more religious than the norm, but for every Pentecostal, you'll find a baptist, Methodist and a Church of Christ patron that isn't nearly as eclectic and thinks the Pentecostals are a little weird too.

But I've never been all that bothered by the Southern stereotypes (they are sort of true) so beyond that, a real entertaining film.