Counter Culture

1h 35min

Director: Daniel Kokotajlo

Writer: Daniel Kokotajlo (as Dan Kokotajlo)

Stars: Siobhan Finneran, Robert Emms, Bronwyn James

This is the story of a family being torn apart as the strictures of their religion conflict with the realities of both illness and the modern world. The story focuses on three women – a mother and two young adult daughters – whose ties to the group create conflict in their relationships with each other.The younger daughter Alex (Molly Wright) is anemic. She has been conditioned to feel guilt and shame because she received a blood transfusion as a baby. This is at odds with the teaching of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) to which she and her family belong. Her older daughter, Luisa (Sacha Parkinson), is beginning to question their belief system and rebel. When she becomes pregnant after a relationship with a non-Witness and he fails to convert and marry, she is excluded from the group. one of The requirements of disfellowshipping means that family members who remain Witnesses cannot have any significant contact so her mother Ivanna (Siobhan Finneran) forces Luisa to leave home. Ivanna is faced with a choice between her faith and her family. The Church expects her to “shun” her own daughter and effectively isolate her from her family and former community. The mother, Ivanna ((Siobhan Finneran), is conflicted but generally sides with her faith and obedience to the authority of the ‘Elders’. She is, perhaps, the character you feel saddest for. My mind called out for her to see sense and put her daughters before her unreasoned faith.

It’s a bleak story, matched by a grim northern setting, which is often difficult to watch. There are lighter moments and there are also moments that show the attractive side of the fellowship of the JW. I enjoyed the JW speaking Urdu and trying to recruit Pakistanis on the doorstep (and wow you have to admire their commitment to learning Urdu!) and the party scene of JWs showed a different, more attractive side to them.I found it difficult to feel much sympathy for the teachings of the JW as opposed to the adherents/victims. The film depicts them as hostile to independent thought. Speaking to Screen International, the Director explained, “I was harbouring doubts since I went to college. I realised that people at college were interested in your opinion. That was a new concept to me because being a Witness it was always about reaffirming the text, group-think, it wasn’t about encouraging independent thought.” I also found their practices similar to other cults. Disfellowship is very similar to the Scientolgist view of how to behave toward “suppressive persons”, for example.This, low-budget film is well-written and has terrific performances, particularly from the female leads. Yes, it deals with a traumatic and difficult subject but it does so in a sensitive and thought-provoking way.

If there is an underlying message to the film I think it is to take great care in adopting a worldview, value-system or ideology.

Reviewed by Patrick Harrington

Authours note: A much longer discussion took place in our Counter Culture Film Club so if I’ve stolen anyone’s ideas from there just remember that the Magpie likes shiny objects and I like good ideas!