'Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus' is a captivating and compelling road trip through the creative spirit of the South. 'Alt' Country singer Jim White takes his muscle car through a gritty terrain of churches, prisons, truck stops, biker bars and coalmines. This is a journey through a very real contemporary Southern America, a world of marginalized white people and their unique and intense homemade culture. Along the way are roadside encounters with present-day musical mavericks including the
Handsome Family, Johnny Dowd, David Eugene Edwards and David Johansen; old time banjo player Lee Sexton; Rockabilly and mountain Gospel churches - and novelist Harry Crews telling grisly stories down a dirt track. Everybody has a story in some form, almost invariably of sudden death, sin or redemption - yet all transformed by the characteristic grim humor and natural eloquence of the Southern imagination. And all the while, a strange Southern Jesus looms in the background.
The soundtrack, which includes Lee Sexton, The Handsome Family and others, is full of haunting Southern sounds; the camera work is inventive; and the interviews give you an off-center sense of place that equals at least one aspect of the South.
Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus is one of those movie-long non sequiturs where, though one thought does not logically follow another, we know what is meant.
Ultimately, pic feels very much like a romanticized, outsider's view of the South that willfully seeks out the culture's strangest, most weirdo aspects for other outsiders' gleeful delectation.
It's a slow, ponderous film -- too slow and too ponderous, maybe -- but an intriguing one, often funny, sometimes unnerving, and altogether hard to forget.
Calling this a documentary is a bit of a misnomer, as Douglas splices staged music numbers into his travelogue footage to paint his surreal homage to the Deep South
White says you can't really understand the South if its not in your blood, and he's probably right. But the film does an admirable job trying to give us a transfusion.
According to this, there are only 3 types of people in the South: the sinners on the road to hell, the religious fanatics praying for them, and the people who sing about both.
Andrew Douglas' meandering documentary Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus contains fantastic images--pictures that haven't been captured so intimately before.
The atmosphere conveyed is possibly too vivid. By the time the movie is over, you'll probably feel the need to take a shower just to scrub off the lingering, psychic grime.
Documentary, or is it? Well crafted story of the narrator's travels through his deep south, from the bayous of Louisiana to the mountain coal mines in W. VA. Engaging, original music throughout, and a lot of nutty characters he meets along the way.
June 24, 2007
John Nielsen
**1/2As an exploration of the deep south, the film succeeds on a visual level. However, its sense of narrative direction falls as flat as most of the musical performances in the film. The story-telling feels stilted and unauthentic (with the exception of a certain church scene) and there is much left to desire as far
as the editing goes. The only reason I kept watching an hour in was due to the exceedingly eerie visuals. I really want to know how what kind of film stock they used and what sorts of exposure they allowed to get the picture they way it is presented. If you like documentaries, you can probably stand this one. Otherwise, beware. Also, I will say that the representation of the South in the film does not apply to the South as a whole. Actually, my friend who watched it with me said he travelled through that area and never really saw sights such as were in the film. I have lived in NC all my life and have never seen anything like that, either.
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