Greetings,
I probably missed any of the reviews of the Knocking documentary if they were posted on JWD. I got my copies today and watched the main film and some of the bonus features.
Probably a lot could be said about the bonus feature info but i will just confine my comments to the documentary in this post.
Overall Impressions:
It's rather "ho-hum" as far as a documentary film goes. I don't know who these audiences/judges were that merited it at these festivals listed on cover, but they must have had a bad lot to select from. The film as a whole has very little "plot" or even the type of story arc that gives good documentaries a satisfying crunch. The closest thing to any drama is whether the bloodless liver transplant of Seth Thomas will be successful or not and that outcome was pretty much telegraphed from the start.
This film is one that only a Witness could love. For non-Witnesses there simply isn't enough of anything like drama, humor, characterization, story, or even insightful information to make it interesting.
Having said the above, the film does an ok job of telling a bit of the stories of its subjects in an objective if very superficial way.
What has to be understood is that the film is in no way meant to be (it would seem) and certainly doesn't explore any of the real complexity of Jehovah's Witnesses culture or theology nor is it obviously an expose' on the various schisms, scandals, conflicts or controversies in JW history or present.
Because it is not meant to be this type of film (and probably because it had to be palatable to the Witnesses involved and the Society), the film is obviously not very useful to those who truly want to learn "both sides" of the JW story. And I imagine for that reason alone, many JW-opposers will pan the movie and relegate it to being a propagandist puff piece. If on the other hand, you can accept it for what it is meant to be, then the film can be seen as a lukewarm attempt at giving a peek at Jehovah's Witnesses to the public. Maybe because JWs are so understudied and the cultural aspects or deeper theology or debatable issues are not well known by the general public, that explains why the film would be in the least bit appealing to non-JWs.
To the filmmakers credit, the narrator/director does mention such things as disfellowshipping, the lack of tolerance of dissent or critism, and the film tries to highlight some of the common social conflicts among JWs such as religiously divided families and the blood issue. Unfortunately, none of these areas are really explored or questioned too deeply. The latter two situations which are delved with in the study of Seth and his family in conflict with the grandmother who does not support their blood stance and with the study of Joseph Kempler, a jewish convert to JWs, and his Jewish family who don't understand why he has rejected his religious heritage, do not really present the "counter-arguments" well. It really makes one wish that someone (practically anyone here) from JWD could have gotten to the grandmother or to the Jewish relatives with the necessary info and armed them well enough so that they could make a better defense for their positions.
It is likely that the filmmakers were certainly aware of the deeper aspects and controversy and it seems obvious that they chose from the outset not to delve into these with any depth in order to make the film and probably to have the cooperation of the subjects and the Society. Again while this limits the utility of the picture as an exploration of JWs, its how they chose to go and that's their perogative.
One pretty good feature is the "Study/Discussion Guide" which actually does a much better job of exploring the complexity, laying out some of the problems in the Organization, and is probably more useful than the movie itself to giving some info to the general public.
what follows now are specific comments on the various topics addressed in the documentary.....
The Blood Issue (Seth's story):
One feels for the guy and we are all happy that the liver transplant (hey props to my USC!) went well and without this stuff the film really would have been devoid of any human interest, but my goodness the omissions are just so overwhelmingly glaring in the film. (one has to read the "Study/Discussion Guide" to even encounter the fact that blood fractions are accepted by some JWs - though this might have been in the bonus features).
But typical of the main problem with the whole movie, the "discussion" stops there. What is really needed is someone, again maybe even the opposed grandmother, to bring up the obvious question of why the adjustments have occurred in the first place and to ask where are the logical reasons nd the scriptural reasons for these adjustments and then to ask about the next logical step: "What about when blood is completely accepted and they conclude that this teaching was wrong all along?"
What is maybe more disconcerting is that since no mention is made about the issue, the general public just seeing the film on tv or at a festival will likely come away with the impression that JWs reject ALL blood including the fractions.
Familial Conflict & Nazi Germany (Joseph Kempler's story):
Joseph Kempler is a jew who was in the concentration camps during the war. He says that he was so impressed by the Bible Students (JWs) that after the war, and after his own spiritual crisis, he became a Witness. There isn't a whole lot to this story actually. Kempler reunites with his first daughter and her jewish family and there is a bit of that exploration of how they relate or don't relate to his new faith. All superficial.
The story is used more as a springboard to explore the JW role in Nazi Germany and their persecution.
Without getting into the whole Declaration controversy or the nonsense about how JWs supposedly backed the Nazis at first (ala Lorrie McGregor's claims) which are a complete mischaracterization of what occurred and of the facts; all I will say about it is the following.
The people that suffered in the camps and who were otherwise persecuted and oppressed are certainly deserving of our rememberance and respect and it is good to highlight any such stories.
One problem that I do have about the whole issue however, is that it is not exactly an undebatable point whether it is accurate to say that JWs were persecuted by the Nazis.
This is due to the following facts.
- The original persons there were both theologically, culturally and in name, International Bible Students (Bibelforscher), in other wordsthey were Russellite Bible Students.
- A large portion of these Bible Students (who would later be persecuted and imprisoned in the camps) broke away during the period 1919 - 1930 and rejected a lot of the Rutherford changes.
- The official name change to Jehovah's Witnesses at the Ohio convention in 1931, motivated in part by a desire to distinguish the Society controlled groups from the independent Bible Student groups.
- This name was not adopted by all German Bible Students who were in association with the Society and in fact when the first persecution under the Nazi regime started in 1933, the name had not been adopted. This is seen by the fact that in March 1933, t he German branch of Jehovah's Witnesses was restructured and new societies were formed: the “Norddeutsche Biblelforschervereinigung” (North German Association of Bible Students) and the “Suddeutsche Bibelforschervereinigung” (South German Association of Bible Students). Paul Balzereit becames the head of the German branch. Attempts by the Bible Students to negotiate with the German government to continue its religious activities fail and various states begin to ban them.
- 1935, Jan. 9: First documented case of Bible Student, Anna Seifert, incarcerated in Moringen concentration camp.
- From 1935 to 1945 after the war, the German Bible Students were pretty much on their own and out of direct authority with the Society.
- The Nazis did not make any distinction between the Bible Students associated with the Society and those independent (Russellite) Bible Students and all received the same Purple Triangle designation beginning in 1938.
- Post War, many of the Bible Students did not accept the tremendous cultural changes that had been instituted by Rutherford prior to the war years. Nor to the changes that had occurred due to the reaction to their own persecution back home the US Witnesses had become very fiery and brimstone and abrasive and the new culture did not sit well with many of the Bible Students who had suffered meekly in Germany. When they finally learned of his death (which had occurred in 1942) but which they didn't learn about until several years later.
- When they were able to register again in 1945, they registered the under the name "International Bible Students Association, German branch" and it wasn't until the following year that they re-registered under the name, "Jehovah's Witnesses, International Bible Students Association, German Branch."
1933-1945: Of about 25,000 International Bible Students, ca. 10,000 had been imprisoned for various lengths of time; 2,000 of them in concentration camps; 1,200 had died or were murdered, including about 250 who were executed for refusing military service.
So what's my point with all of this? It's simply that the fact is that the Bible Students were not Jehovah's Witnesses from a cultural viewpoint and many of them were not even in association with the Society prior to their incarceration during the Nazi regime. True, some of these did become Jehovah's Witnesses and have told their stories...but likely just as many if not even more, remained International Bible Students and are German Independent Bible Students today following Russelite doctrines.
Thus to blanketly say that JWs were persecuted under the Nazi regime is not only inaccurate, it ignores the differences between the Bible Students and the JWs which were already in place prior to the war years and which remained in place after the war years even though both groups were lumped together as Purple Triangles by the Nazis.
Civil Rights, Free Speech, the Marketplace of Ideas:
The third issue dealt with by the documentary has to do with these civil rights areas. And really JWs are deserving of much accolades for their efforts and struggles in this area.
True, freedom of speech is something which is applicable to the state's or government's conduct and is not an inherent right when one is discussing individual to individual relations. But as many have mentioned it does take some of the polish off the apple when the Society doesn't extend the same freedoms that it enjoys as against the government to its own citizens.
This and other such concerns was severely lacking in the film and just glossing over it by saying that dissenters are punished does nothing to help anyone understand why. One comment I found expecially atrocious was the director's statement in the StudyGuide that "Jehovah's Witnesses are moral conservatives who only compete in the marketplace of ideas."
Indeed he is correct that Jehovah's Witnesses only seek to have the right to bring their views to the marketplace of ideas. Unfortunately, he fails to fully address the fact that they don't allow their own members to actually shop there themselves.
Not that they erect any significant barriers to the marketplace of ideas, but one cannot openly browse about there or share their acquisitions with others as we all know.
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Anyways, i could probably say more but that's enough. I would be interested to see any further comments form folks who have actually seen the film. I am sending my two other copies,one to my family andone to my JW friends. I think they will enjoy it a lot more than I did.
In fact, given the dearth of positive JW films, they will probably think very highly of the movie.
-Eduardo