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Sinners and You
Be careful ladies and gentlemen. America as we know it is under attack from the most unlikely villain. They look just like you and I, but their deadly, secret agenda is nothing short of hell-sent: Their only motivation is to integrate themselves into our pure, God-fearing society, earn our trust, and slowly use their influence to pervert and manipulate us. Who are these dastardly evildoers? No, not Communists. No, not even terrorist spies. These spawns of Satan are called Sinners, and only through our instruction will you be able to learn how to defend yourselves from their all-encompassing, sinister grip! Now, there are certain ways you can tell a “sinner” from the average person, and there are also several methods that you can take to protect yourself from their despicable influence. These methods are… On second thought, maybe I should simply let Sinners and You do the talking, because it certainly has a whole lot to say. It is a short from Beamish Boy Productions that plays like an old, black-and-white instructional reel, complete with grainy, scratched film and a audio-quality that makes it sound like the cast members are speaking into a tin can. Its intention is to expose the absurdity in many Christian churches that are bent on dressing everyone in suites and ties and having them carry around King James Versions of the Bible that should be no smaller than the average head. As someone who has spent a great deal of time in the Bible-belt, I can assure you that this film’s “protagonist” is only a very slight exaggeration of the real thing. The film creates a metaphor that channels instructional films during the 1950s Red Scare, with an "expert" showing a young boy how to properly identify not Communists, but sinners. This is not a gimmick, but an intelligent approach demonstrating the absurdity and paranoia of many right-wing conservative Christians, who even today can be heard insisting that Mr. Rogers went to hell because he was a (gasp) Presbyterian. Of course, not everyone in the Moral Majority is this absurd. In fact, some of the most open, accepting people that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing were ultra-conservative, Southern Baptists whose bumper stickers read, “Christians aren’t perfect. Only forgiven.” But Sinners and You is not attacking these good, honest folks of the Lake Wobegon-tradition. What it tries to do is point its fingers at the religious groups of the pre-exposed Swaggart position who, by God, will protect themselves from the sinful people of the world (such as persons who have facial hair, or people who listen to rock music, or people who go to theater houses, or any “Christian” that reads any translation of the Bible but King James), and are, by God, so thankful that they haven’t sinned in twelve years. The film is produced and edited by Stephen Boatright, whose short film Outcasts moved me to suggest that if Christ was to come back today with his parables and sermons, he could have been a short film director. Sinners and You carries on this tradition: Boatright is certainly a Christian interested in exposing the hypocrites in the church, and their often absurd neo-conservative views of the way "good Christians" should walk, talk, and act. Of course, most of us recognize this absurdity anyway, and Sinners and You could have fallen into an easy trap of being an obvious sermon to the choir. Instead, it proves to be a carefully calculated work that is certain to smash on some toes in the long run. Likening the case against sinners to the case against 1950s Communists is an inspired idea, especially when we understand that such witch-hunts eventually only exposed the hypocrisy of the F.B.I. and certain senators. This short film, then, is quite a prophecy. The sad twist—one of which Boatright and director Chris Bookless seem keenly aware—is that in the meantime, many of this breed of dogmatic persons could view this film and say, “Wow. This sure is helpful!” Because of that, I wish that the film had contained a stronger punch-line. The premise is inspired, and the execution is flawless, but I had hoped that the closing scenes would have included some sort of closure in which one of the characters is left with a bad taste in his mouth over what he has been taught. But this is my approach, not the filmmakers’. As a mock instructional film, I suppose that Sinners and You needed to be completely unflinching to prove its point, and the final shots of “sinners” sitting peacefully in a park while a wild-eyed instructor warns his pupil (dressed in his new suit and carrying his new, King James Bible) to heed his warnings is probably effective enough. Perhaps the greatest benefit of Sinners and You is Boatright and Bookless’ position as contemporary Christian filmmakers. Instead of producing the typical, cornball material that is usually offered on the Christian film market (see The Omega Code or, heaven help us, The Judas Project), they have made a very personal project in which they admit that, yes, many Christians are bizarre, hypocritical, and close-minded, but that we shouldn’t judge them all on this level. Most Christians, as films like Sinners and You, Outcasts, Free at Last, The Passion of the Christ, and The Last Temptation of Christ have proven, are actually witty, insightful, and have plenty of intelligent things to say about their faith and how it applies to our world. For this insight, and for their opposition against their more fundamentalist brethren, we should be grateful. If you have a good ear, you will note that some of the music in Sinners and You is lifted from George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. If you are only remotely familiar with my reviews, you will recognize that film as one that I adamantly defend time and time again as a gripping social commentary about a society that has had literally become zombified in its own ritualistic and “us versus them”-based mentality. Exactly. Jesus, who also taught in parables, might have gotten along perfectly fine with George Romero. Or, at the very least, Romero would get along fine with Boatright. The latter should take that as a compliment. Cast: A Beamish Boy Production.
Directed by Chris Bookless. Written by Jstin Tarlton. Produced,
edited, and shot by Stephen Boatright. No M.P.A.A. rating (fine
for kids). Running time: 8 minutes. Original United States theatrical
release date: October 1, 2004 (Firefly Film Festival in Chattanooga,
TN). |
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