Shot dream Watching the "Sacrament", without first reading a word about its plot, turned out to be a real extreme. Nothing good can be expected from the plot, in which a company of journalists goes to a religious commune lost in the jungle to learn about the fate of the sister of one of the heroes. Obviously, such a commune has something to hide, and the imagination of the viewer draws a certain zombie mass immersed in a bloody cult.
Of course, even the first iridescent impressions of the idyllic life of American settlers under the tutelage of their beloved Father do not dispel the doubts of the viewer about the true occupations of the sectarians. But the further turn of events Ty West clearly managed to surprise everyone who hoped that the main characters, as befits in such films, to the very credits will save their lives from the crowd of bloodthirsty adherents of the destructive cult.
It turns out that the guys with the camera are prepared to play extras rather than victims of violence. An entire settlement of hundreds of people who have escaped to this earthly paradise from the poverty of the ghetto is involved in events that two or three journalists cannot influence. In this sense, horror, as West understands it, approaches in sensation to military-historical paintings that paint a portrait of society during a social catastrophe. It is not scenes with mass singing that are frightening, but the feeling of a rapidly rolling wave of insanity, which at the right time breaks out of the bowels of the collective psyche. And despair in the eyes of those who can not reach the crowd, from which someone for a long time has taken a drop of the remnants of reason.
The collective portrait of the settlers from Paradise Community is what most interests the director and becomes the most convincing part of the film. Not only the lack of elementary skills of critical thinking is striking, but also the extreme defenselessness of poor people who trust the will of others. The action of the film dates back to the 70s, and it is not surprising that at least half of the community is black, often without the slightest chance of a decent life in the States. The settlers of West are long-disoriented people with a slavish attitude, who can be skillfully manipulated if desired.
The obvious historical basis of the Paradise Community is the Temple of Nations in Jonestown, which was not only religious in nature, but also socio-political. Ty West draws clear parallels while deliberately changing the nature of the commune. In order to achieve the horror effect, many components of the real story that speak of its complexity are removed. The picture did not include such facts from the “Temple of the Peoples”, as CIA infiltrators, community contacts with the Soviet Union and several dozen settlers who voluntarily left the commune on a fateful morning. All this does not negate the unconditional effect of the film. But perhaps strangely, Martin Luther King King’s dream in the film was created by people with a slavish mindset, rather than the politically active citizens who were among the first in their country to overcome racial prejudice for the sake of a shared future at home.
8 out of 10
Original