It’s 44 years now since American preacher Jim Jones presided over the notorious mass-murder/suicide in which over 900 people died, most by taking poison, in a settlement in Guyana. Now, Czech director Jan Bušta has used the 1978 Jonestown massacre as the starting point for his film “on the border between documentary and fiction.” a-B-C-D-e-F-G-H-i-JONESTOWN is a world premiere in Czech Joy Competition in Ji.hlava.
“It started originally as unhealthy post-teenager fascination,” the director says of his own morbid interest in the Jonestown killings.
Not that Bušta’s film is primarily about the grim and gory details of the massacre. It’s more of a self-reflexive, experimental affair in which the director explores mass manipulation.
“It’s not a film about manipulation, but it is manipulation itself,” Bušta suggests.
The documentary begins with newspaper headlines about the massacre, “the world’s largest mass suicide.” However, the film rapidly shifts gear. This is not (a voice-over declares) a “movie for sadists, for necrophiles, for voyeurs in search of scandal.” No, you won’t see piles of corpses or the slaughter of the innocents. Instead, after a minute’s break (during which spectators can leave and get their money back if they so desire), we see two old ladies in the Czech Republic telling two versions of the Jim Jones story (“he called himself a socialist, working-class God”), an official CIA account and Soviet propaganda version of events. One of the ladies is actually the director’s own grandmother.
Much of the rest of the documentary shows kids in a school gymnasium. A boy in purple robes stands on a plinth/pulpits and preaches to the kids. “Surrealistic humour!” the director describes his approach, “You can surprisingly discover it even against the background of tragedy.”
This is a project with a very long gestation. The director first conceived it more than a decade ago, when he was at film school. During the 10 years since he hatched the idea for the doc, Bušta’s life has changed dramatically. He has had four kids. He has watched several thousands of films. He has built a career making trailers for films. “It [ the documentary] is definitely different than it would have been if it was made as a school film,” he says of how he has drawn on the knowledge and experience he has picked up over the last decade.
Bušta acknowledges his influences. “There are many quotes, many references.” Look carefully at the documentary and you will see nods in the direction of Michael Snow’s experimental film, Wavelength, and of some of the more radical filmic experiments of the late Jean-Luc Godard. He also took some inspiration from Jan Němec, the revered Czech filmmaker known as the enfant terrible of the Czech New Wave who was one of his tutors at FAMU (Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague). One idea directly taken from Němec’s filmmaking was framing Jones talking through the hands of someone praying.
“All the language of the film, all the devices I use, the intention [with them] was to deliver to the audience the same feeling I had when I first read the transcript of the Jonestown Death Tapes [the audio recordings made during the massacre in which Jones is heard imploring his followers to come forward to take their poison).”
The film received a very warm reception at its premiere in Jihlava earlier this week. Now, the challenge is to get it into wider distribution.
“As you can imagine, it’s tough of course [with] such a niche film to deliver it to the audience,” suggests producer Radim Procházka. He has been submitting the documentary to some of the A-list festivals while also approaching international cinematheques and museums.
“There are quite a few good cinemas with brave programmers,” Procházka says of the Czech Republic itself. The filmmakers are keen for the doc to be shown on the big screen. That, the director points out, is the only way to apprec
iate the film’s lovingly crafted sound design. The intention was to reconstruct the Jonestown death tapes “step by step and precisely.” The sound develops gradually – at the beginning it is mono, then stereo, and by the end the viewer is completely immersed in Dolby surround. The film also contains music from the R&B group The Delfonics with the sound design incorporating their song ‘I’m Sorry’ which can be heard slowed down on the Jonestown Death Tape.
Bušta and producer Procházka are collaborating again on Utopia Beta, a new eight-part drama series based on the story of the Bata Shoe Company, in particular on a post-war courtroom battle over the firm waged by rival family members. “We are in development stage. The scripts are almost done,” the producer explains. The goal now is to find co-producers as the project is likely to be too expensive to finance in the Czech Republic alone.
