Here's a doco that raises a key dilemma - ought the documentary filmmaker just document, or can he or she also intrude?
Author Paul Theroux has written that as a travel writer at times, "being a stranger was like the evocation of a dream state". His documentary-filmmaker son, Louis, seems trapped in a nightmarish scenario in this compelling exploration of the bizarre Westboro Baptist Church, from Topeka, Kansas.
Headed by Fred Phelps (aka Gramps), it maintains God is punishing America in Iraq and Afghanistan for ignoring the biblical caution against homosexuality. Theroux doesn't stoop to ridiculing the mostly family church group that pickets funerals of soldiers with anti-gay chants and placards condemning homosexuality. He is concerned that they know he has a child to a woman he has not married.
He is clearly daunted by a testy Gramps and falters through two frustrated attempts at interviews. But he is bolder with others, including the old man's greying daughter, Shirley, who corrals the kids and runs the pickets. He seems to warm to some family members and is upset that the pastor is stunting his children and grandchildren to such an extent they rejoice at the belief that others, including himself, are going to hell. He repeatedly distances himself from the church, expressing his disapproval of their views. But so concerned is he, he seems almost evangelical in his determination to show them the error of their ways.
