Review #691: 'Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple' (2006)

The greatest documentaries will keep you fascinated throughout, regardless of whether you know the outcome or not. The focus of Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple is the mysterious and disturbing mass-suicide of 909 people in the jungles of Guyana, in a new settlement they dubbed 'Jonestown' after their fanatical leader Jim Jones. This was a well publicised event, but has only really been tagged as a simple 'cult ritual', with all the finer details frustratingly spared. Jonestown delves deeper into this still-shocking event, and exposes not a small army of brainwashed fanatics, but a community terrified by a maniacal control-freak with a God complex.

Jim Jones was a lonely child in a household dominated by an unloving, alcoholic father. He sought refuge in the church where he found a family he belonged to, and eventually became a preacher. While preaching for civil rights and racial equality, he began to amass a large following, and soon his small community was too large for Indiana, and they all relocated to California where they became known as the Peoples Temple. Followers had there medical bills, travel expenses, clothes and near everything else paid for them, as to be a member you were expected to work and earn your place. Soon though, members began defecting, and Jones and Peoples Temple fled to Guyana after a magazine article was due to be published, exposing sexual abuse, physical humiliation and staged healings at the hands of Jones.

Sadly, this documentary leaves many questions unanswered, namely surrounding Jones himself, who remains a - strangely uncharismatic - mystery. Yet through interviews with survivors and Jones's adopted son, we learn that political power gained through the growth of Peoples Temple and his abuse of drugs and alcohol, soon led to his psychological demise. His preachings of racial equality helped him earn the backing of elderly black women, and soon enough liberal white youngsters, and his old-world gospel style quickly earned him the adoration of these social outcasts. But we hear him preach about how there is no heaven above, and if these people want him to be their God, then he will play that role. This would be blasphemy in most people's eyes, yet these people on the crust of society were just looking for some kind of stability and sense of belonging.

Of the actual massacre itself, there is a surprisingly large amount of video and audio recordings. The camp has an atmosphere of hushed fear, that everyone is thinking the same thing but no-one dare say it. Jones's voice blasted out his gibberish, alcohol-fuelled rants almost non-stop while the followers did their jobs. The murder of Congressman Leo Ryan sets in motion a terrifying sequence of events, all caught mainly on audio, as Jones tells his members that it's time to die. His voice urging the children to "hurry, hurry," is particularly chilling. It's still difficult to believe how this happened. A man who could have had all the power he craved, both politically and financially, but seemed to be driven more by the need to control and dominate his loyal followers. Like I said before, Jim Jones still remains a mystery, but the movie does shed some light on the man, and paints a clearer picture of what happened that day on November 18th, 1978.


Directed by: Stanley Nelson
Starring: Jim Jones
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie