Jesus Camp centers on Becky Fisher, who runs a Pentecostal "evangelical education" camp for children. The movie follows her and a few of her students throughout their experiences leading up to, during, and shortly after their experiences at camp.
The proprietors of the camp maintain that it solely to educate children on the need to be saved and lead holy lives, but it doesn't take long to see that there is more going on than meets the eye. The leaders give long seminars (attended mainly by kids 4-8) that include long diatribes on how evil they are, praying for President Bush, and why abortion is Satan embodied. Even the parts of this camp that dont cause children to cry because God hates them are tainted by a kind of political "hazing".
That being said, these are all impressions *I* made after viewing the film. The filmmaker does a great job of keeping the tone of her documentary very neutral. Other than very subtle, and maybe even unconscious on her part, uses of ironic editing techniques, she does a great job of leaving it open for viewer to make their own judgements.
Great film, hard to watch.
1 comment:
while i appreciate that the makers of Jesus Camp let interviewees do all the talking, they were obviously selective about what they let into the final movie release... over all, there is some useful truth in this flick... as long as it's taken with a grain (or maybe a bucket) of salt
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