Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple

Written by: Marcia Smith

Directed by: Stanley Nelson

Distributor: Firelight Media

Rated: Not Rate

Featuring archival footage, pictures and audio accompanied by contemporary interviews, Nelson and Smith’s documentary about the church of Jim Jones is an overwhelmingly chilling documentary. Having grown-up outside of organized religion, the dark legend of Jim Jones hung over Christianity for me as a child. Whenever teachers or classmates spoke of their religions in grade school, I always pictured them dying from Kool-Aid poisoning. Nelson and Smith adds depth to the darkness, revealing the very real, humanitarian end of the religion that eventually consumed well over 900 people in Guyana on November 18, 1978.

Nelson and Smith begin the film by looking unflinchingly at the early life of church leader Jim Jones as he grew up in Indiana. This section of the film is not without its own sort of offbeat charm. This is the story of a man who sold pet monkeys door to door to raise money to found his own church. Jones’ religious zeal early on was accompanied by what appeared to be a genuine desire to bring abut racial equality in the turbulent 60s. Surviving members of Jones’ church are interviewed about those early days of the church. It’s fascinating to see people talk with such love about the lofty ideals of Jones’ church. In less than two decades, the church would move to California and finally South America, where a mass suicide would finally come to identify the church as a cult for the rest of history. Jones’ church appealed to so many people in the mid-60s because it so openly supported racial harmony. Even after the horror of the mass-suicide, surviving members of the church who condemn what it became speak with affection about the church’s early days.

Nelson and Smith deftly transition from compelling interview footage speaking of racial harmony to stories of the loyalty it inspired. Jim Jones slowly took advantage of the kind of selflessness that the church was able to instill in his followers. There have been books written on the brainwashing techniques utilized by Jones. The history of Peoples Temple has been catalogued in a number of books over the years. None of this is unique to the documentary. It’s the interviews that Nelson and Smith have recorded that give this film a shocking level of power. It’s a very specific kind of hell one sees in the eyes of those who have survived a cult. It’s there in the interviews that chillingly shape this documentary.

Actual images of Jones and of Jonestown are every bit as disturbing as one would expect it to be. The members of the church took a tremendous amount of footage. We hear the voices of surviving church members over grainy 70’s video of Jonestown. Jones himself is a highly theatrical man who new exactly what he was doing. He has the practiced poise of an uber-politician combined with an almost surreal level of vanity. This is one of the 20th century’s undisputed villains and he vividly looks the part.

The final moments of Jonestown are carefully played out in the film with a great deal of respect for those who died. Elements are slowly lowered into place that foreshadow the inevitable slaughter. A former aid to Congressman Leo Ryan speaks of accompanying him on his ill-fated fact-finding mission to Jonestown. The rest is expertly edited together from the contemporary voices of people who were there and archival footage recorded in the days leading up to and including November 18, 1978. It’s an extremely well produced documentary detailing one of the most horrific events in the past 30 years. VS