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      Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus

      Released Mar 14, 2005 1h 24m Documentary List
      68% 34 Reviews Tomatometer 90% 1,000+ Ratings Audience Score Traveling through the American South, documentarian Andrew Douglas trains his lens on Jim White, an alternative-country musician, as he performs in venues that range in variety from churches to coal mines. During this journey, White shares his experience of growing up in the Deep South, while Douglas interviews a number of other Southern musicians, artists and writers, attempting to gain a perspective on a unique culture that is often overlooked. Read More Read Less
      Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus

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      Critics Consensus

      This atmospheric tour of the Deep South is both quirky and lovely.

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      Audience Reviews

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      Audience Member Pretentious horse shit Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Audience Member Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus is a narrow minded view of the American south as seen through the eyes of pseudo hipsters. This "documentary" includes some beautiful imagery of southern landscapes but ruins it with useless dialogue and staged interviews. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review Audience Member The music is amazing. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Audience Member At its best, the music documentary can bring the best out of its subject like Woodstock or Chet Baker in Let's Get Lost. It can also illuminate indulgence in its subject like Metallica's Some Kind of Monster. Usually, the music biopic treats someone or a genre as its central character but in Andrew Douglas' mesmerising Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, music plays a strangely peripheral role but one which the film could not function without. The main character is the American South and our guide is Jim White, a bluesman who has had not a little success around the globe but who we learn feels his real home is the south, a place where he feels close to God. As a largely lapsed Christian country, some British viewers may choose to judge the 'cast' of this documentary as evangelical nut-jobs but with the genial White for company, we feel strangely empathic to the men and women who give their lives completely and totally to god. Well, when they're not out drinking, dancing and shouting. This is a complex south, part True Blood, part Badlands but with religion running through its core. Music comes with blues and country singing contemporaries of White who perform in strange locations throughout the film's journey and they emphasise the hold that tradition has on these people. The film is warm yet haunting at the same time and all our emotions seem to be channelled through White as he asks nothing of us but merely to observe, we can even judge if we want. By the end, we judge kindly and are still humming long after the credits have rolled. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/23/23 Full Review Audience Member This is an elliptic but fascinating and probably educational (not to mention nice to look at and listen to) "documentary" about southern life and culture. It is one of those films that is just so unique that you can't really compare it to anything else. Almost like an Errol Morris movie. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/19/23 Full Review Audience Member με Dave-Eugene Edwards! Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus

      Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2003) Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2003) Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2003) Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2003) View more photos

      Critics Reviews

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      Chris Vognar Dallas Morning News The soundtrack, which includes Lee Sexton, The Handsome Family and others, is full of haunting Southern sounds; the camera work is inventive; and the interviews give you an off-center sense of place that equals at least one aspect of the South. Rated: B Oct 20, 2005 Full Review Michael Booth Denver Post Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus is one of those movie-long non sequiturs where, though one thought does not logically follow another, we know what is meant. Rated: 3/4 Oct 7, 2005 Full Review Jeff Shannon Seattle Times A portrait of rural America as beautiful as it is bizarre. Rated: 3.5/4 Aug 12, 2005 Full Review Eric Monder Film Journal International To say the film lingers in the mind like a nightmare is not to say it is unpleasant. Mar 1, 2007 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews The music was fine; the tour was suspect. Rated: C+ May 29, 2006 Full Review Eric D. Snider EricDSnider.com It's a slow, ponderous film -- too slow and too ponderous, maybe -- but an intriguing one, often funny, sometimes unnerving, and altogether hard to forget. Rated: B May 5, 2006 Full Review Read all reviews

      Movie Info

      Synopsis Traveling through the American South, documentarian Andrew Douglas trains his lens on Jim White, an alternative-country musician, as he performs in venues that range in variety from churches to coal mines. During this journey, White shares his experience of growing up in the Deep South, while Douglas interviews a number of other Southern musicians, artists and writers, attempting to gain a perspective on a unique culture that is often overlooked.
      Director
      Andrew Douglas
      Producer
      Steve Golin, Anthony Wall
      Screenwriter
      Steve Haisman
      Genre
      Documentary
      Original Language
      English (United Kingdom)
      Release Date (Theaters)
      Mar 14, 2005, Original
      Release Date (DVD)
      Jan 27, 2015
      Box Office (Gross USA)
      $77.2K
      Runtime
      1h 24m