Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)

Sadly Over-hyped

Lack of good storyline.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The Jonestown Massacre is an event so horrible and unique that it's hard to fathom that it did in fact happen; such is the unbelievable nature of its waste of human life. In this made for television documentary commissioned by PBS, we get an insight into the events leading up to and also during the mass suicide that killed over 900 followers of demented church leader Jim Jones.Director Stanley Nelson has done a fine job gathering together a range of talking heads who experienced the workings of Jones first hand and his also unearthed some quite startling archival footage and voice recordings to give us an eerily insightful look at what took place in the People's Temple and what exactly Jones preached on the day the Cool Aid supplies were used for the most sinister reasons possible. These uses of real life footage and voice recordings create the documentary's most powerful moments and a culmination of extreme evil at the end becomes jaw droopingly hard to sit through as men, women and children (some babies) were told they needed to end their life all for the sake of the greater good. While these elements combine to create a morbidly fascinating look into the People's Temple the film lacks an overall sense of achievement in its telling of Jones and his motivations.You get the feeling that the quintessential look into this group and its manipulative leader is still to be told, as here Nelson fail's to properly pinpoint just what drew Jones to not only start the group, but end the group and the film remains frustratingly distant in many avenues when it comes to the focus of who Jones was and what he wanted. The world may never truly understand just what drove this evil man and what also drew so many to feel like they were powerless to stop the man or simply say no to him but surely there is more insight to be found for the groundwork of such an evil human.While not entertainment in any stretch of the imagination, Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple is an intriguing look into an event that occurred not that long ago and remains to this day one of the most horrific acts of violence ever seen and an example of blind faith leading to destruction.3 loudspeaker announcements out of 5For more movie reviews and opinions check into - www.jordanandeddie.wordpress.com

First word tells. Never trust anything starting with 'Peoples...'Unfortunately, Jim Jones' cult (Peoples Temple) was targeting particular groups who were over-keen to believe in Utopia, many of them humble Afro-Americans, who seem to outnumber the other races in a way that makes this rainbow coalition look a bit suspect from the start. The black dimension is, however, the central concern of director Stanley Nelson, and that is how this 85-minute documentary differs from many others on the same horribly fascinating subject. It also means that you are better to have watched some of these first, as the present work naturally gives you a skewed version of the story.Only the first and last sections are directly sequential - Jones' boyhood, and then the climactic 24 hours leading up to the murder/suicide of 900 trusting believers. The main body of the film is taken up with first-hand testimonies by those connected with the Temple, either as bereaved relatives or disillusioned whistleblowers. Not one in ten of these could be described as people of critical insight. In fact, 'uncritical' is probably the key word. Long before they swallowed their lethal poison, they were swallowing a cheap mix of cult-theory, hot-gospeller gabble and theatrical stunts, including a transparently fake miracle with a wheelchair-bound 'patient' who is inspired to get up and walk.Some of their comments are so stupid that they can only be good news for any budding cult-leader, perhaps feeling tempted after watching an exceptionally glamorous whistleblower confessing that she surrendered her virtue to Jones when he said "I'm doing this for you, Debbie." One survivor, clearly unteachable, defends Jones on the grounds that "At least we tried to make a change". (Well, that really does leave the rest of us feeling narrow-minded.) Other reactions include "It all looked so plausible", "It looked like freedom" and "We had fun".At the risk of talking cliché, it is impossible not to note the Hitler parallels, especially the hypnotic effect on crowds and the appeals to turn-in your own family for signs of disloyalty. And his own suicide, at least, was on the cards. For he had shown that he was a man liable to cut-and-run. When the first whistleblower went to the press, Jones was on a plane to Guyana before the morning papers had even hit the street. And once that brave and unusually dutiful congressman Leo Ryan came to investigate on behalf of his worried constituents, it was clear that everything was about to unravel, and that Jones and his ghastly cult might as well self-destruct once and for all.

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple This documentary was the story of the beginning, uprising and fall of the Peoples Temple. Peoples Temple was a religious organization formed by Jim Jones in Indiana in 1955. The church grew over the years and became a community or a family, where the members lived together, and worked together to provide for themselves all of their needs. In a sense it was a cultish commune, which was Jones' aspiration since he was an advocate for communism himself, and was frustrated with the hatred towards communism in the US. The group started out small in Indiana then grew larger as it moved west towards California and then eventually ended in with numbers of people over one thousand in Guyana, a country located in northern South America. A suspicious congressman came in to investigate the organizations suspicious flee to South America. Upon learning that some members of the group wanted to leave, the congressman and others will killed while trying to depart. The documentary explains the background and formation of the organization, and goes on to explain the migration of the church. It tells the story of the message and the hope that these people possessed. The controversy lies in the resulting fate of Peoples Temple. After the congressman was murdered Jones convinces members that they will not get away with what has happened at the only way to escape it and to be free is to kill themselves. On that day 909 men, women, and children committed a mass-suicide in the name of Jim Jones and Peoples temple. Several members were not present that day, several left the community before it got to that point, and very few escaped the day of the massacre. This documentary interviews those survivors in order to give the audience a moving, and intense perception of what really went on with Peoples Temple.The editing involved still images with motion, cutaways of interviewees and video footage. Audio footage from Jones' sermons, smooth transitions, and text overlays. The raw footage of the people was not good quality because it was recordings from the 70's, however it made it seem more real that it was amateur footage. The shots from the interviews were quite impressive though, I noticed especially during the credits that the lighting just looked good, plain and simple. The music also played a huge part in making this documentary effective. It was a documentary about a mass suicide and a religious cult so the creepy and suspicious music was appropriate. Also, to create the vibes of happiness, joy, and peace that the members of the group felt, songs of happiness that were sung during sermons by the congregation were played throughout the movie. It was overall a very informative and interesting documentary. It took a very intriguing topic and answered every question I had on the subject in a creative and beautiful way. It provoked thought, emotion, and concern on the matter, and I really enjoyed the documentary.

I have heard about the cult "Peoples Temple" before, but I knew little about it. Through large amount of rare footages and in depth interviews of the Peoples Temple survivors and family members of the members of Peoples Temple, the documentary takes a deep look into this cult and tries to find out why 909 people committed "mass murder/suicide" on November 18, 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana.This film is what a great documentary looks like. It goes beyond the headline and dig deep into the story. I begin to understand whom Jim Jones was. I begin to understand why so many people crossed the racial and social boundaries to come together and even devoted their lives to this cult leader and their "church." Many of the cult followers were struggling with the social injustice and racial discrimination in the 60s and 70s. Jim Jones offered them equality and sense of belonging that the society didn't offer. So Peoples Temple becomes their utopia where they could be so happy and united. Only the sad part is that later some of them realize they were betrayed and they had no way out.This is definitely a great documentary I have seen this year and I surely hope it will get an Oscar nomination.