In 1989, the country of Liberia was plunged into a brutal civil war between the oppressive government and violent rebels. Missionary work had only begun in Liberia two years earlier but early missionaries had converted enough native members to fill eight branches.
When rebels started storming through the city of Monrovia, the LDS missionaries (all natives) had a tough decision to make: continue street preaching at great personal risk, remain in hiding for who-knows-how-many days or weeks with little supplies, or attempt to flee across the border to safer territory. One elder in particular — a member of the Krahn tribe favored by the government (and thus a special target of the rebels) — found himself in particular danger from the roving, bloodthirsty gangs. With the help of a volunteer mission leader, the elders gathered together, piled into a small sedan, and attempted to cross the largely rebel-owned territory with little money and supplies to the Sierra Leone border and the city of Freetown.
Their story is the new film Freetown, directed by Garrett Batty (The Saratov Approach) in collaboration with screenwriter Melissa Leilani Larson. Freetown screened originally at the 2015 LDS Film Festival and will be released in theaters April 8th, 2015.
Like The Saratov Approach, Batty has taken another true story where the ending is already known and found ways to craft a tense and focused experience. Freetown is an effective tale of survival and spirituality that shows Batty as one of the top LDS directors today.
Batty makes several good decisions in Freetown: filming entirely on location in Africa (with Ghana taking the place of Liberia) adds natural African locales and music for effective local flavor. Shooting with 99% native actors allows the Africans to tell their own story without venturing into “white savior” territory.1The only white faces are the mission president and his wife glimpsed at the very beginning and end, and even then they are superfluous.
Sticking with natives also creates another layer of pathos when violence breaks out. These aren’t American missionaries who can simply fly away back to their first-world homes and watch news updates from 3000 miles away. For these elders, Liberia *is* their home. These are their people to whom they are preaching, and whose villages and families are being torn apart by the war. When the elders reach Freetown and relative safety, no one knows for sure when they’ll be able to return their close friends and family again.2The Liberian Civil War went on and off again for seven years. The Liberian members regrouped in their branches in 1991, but it was estimated that only 400 of the original 1200 members remained; 400 had fled to other countries, and 400 others were ‘unaccounted for’.
I liked how the missionaries in Freetown are shown to be committed and joyous in the gospel, as well as energetic about sharing it with their neighbors3The film doesn’t explicitly state this, but most if not all of the native missionaries would have been recent converts themselves, going on missions within a year or two of their own baptism. I also liked how Freetown portrays the missionaries when chaos breaks out. They observe the situation and make the best decisions they can, without sitting around and waiting for the mission president or Area Authority to tell them what to do. They do what it takes to survive and assist others, regardless of “mission rules”. (The missionaries take off their ties, stay out after curfew, separate from their companions as needed, sleep in the same group shelter with women, etc.4These may sound like obvious things to put by the wayside when there are gun-toting rebels in the area, but there are plenty of missionaries (and mission presidents) who consider mission rules to be akin to commandments handed down from the sky. (“I don’t care if there is a civil war going on, Elder, you’re in bed by 10:30 pm!”))
There may be two potential criticisms to Freetown: one, the missionaries are clumped together interchangeably for most of the movie and don’t get many individual characterizations or personal elements. Other than Elder Gaye (the Krahn elder) we don’t know much about the others (or could probably even list their names without looking them up.) Regrettable, but not something the screenwriters could have dealt with easily with all six elders stuck in a cramped car for much of the film. On the other hand, we do get to know the mission leader Brother Abubakar, who is selfless and dependable even as he has his own under-the-radar faith crisis that the journey with the missionaries helps alleviate.
Secondly, the film’s narrow scope is somewhat limiting. By focusing exclusively on the missionaries and their journey, the other natives (who don’t have the luxury of fleeing like the elders) who have to find a way to survive in Liberia amidst the violence are essentially forgotten. However, Freetown has been designed to be “the missionaries’ story” and I think that’s acceptable as part of the premise. (A more expanded scope that covered more groups of people and their experiences may have made for a more robust film, but that’s a minor complaint).
There are a few key themes in Freetown: there’s a natural undercurrent of “why do bad things happen to good people” when violence breaks out and innocents start dying,5Not nearly to the extent that the OTHER noteworthy film from the 2015 LDS Film Festival does, but still present. which the elders ponder but don’t dwell on. Personal identity and pride is another — Elder Gaye ponders whether he should stick up for who he is when interrogated by the rebels, or simply lie about his tribe to keep from being shot. Being ‘honest’ in such a simple matter isn’t worth dying for, right? Especially when he can accomplish more for his people by surviving. (“It’s not cowardice to survive. Don’t betray your tribe, preserve it!”) However, when others of his tribe proclaim their identity proudly in the face of a gun barrel and pay the price, he starts to wonder whether it’s fair not to share the same destiny.
Tribalism is the primary theme of Freetown. Humans in all eras of history have divided people into Us and Them through whatever excuse is most convenient, whether it is religion, skin color, or simply your family living in the “wrong” part of the country. We’re told the local Krahn tribe is disproportionately favored by the government, which naturally makes the Krahns the “Them” to the rebels’ “Us.”699.9% of the viewers of this film will have no idea how many different ‘tribes’ there are in Liberia, nor how to tell the difference. (Even the rebels can’t tell on sight — they have to ask…) That’s part of the point, as with tribalism the extent of the differences doesn’t really matter — any difference suffices to divide Us and Them, and when enforcing tribal distinctions, often smaller differences matter more than larger ones. There are any number of comparable scenarios in past and present history: the Sunni, Shiites, and Kurds in Iraq today, or the Jews and Samaritans in Jesus’ time. Or, more broadly, ‘blue state’ and ‘red state’ America, or even ‘Iron Rod’ and ‘Liahona’ Mormons.
In contrast, the gospel of Jesus Christ says there is no Them, only Us (in theory, anyway). Church organizations frequently put members of different “tribes” (different races, countries, or economic backgrounds) to serve together in missionary districts or leadership groups. However, LDS chapels are home to their own form of tribalism in many ways, some of them by design.7The Western-style business attire the Liberian elders are asked to wear regardless of local customs is a form of “tribal marker” for Mormons. Also, most of the temple recommend questions fundamentally boil down to, “Are you a member of our tribe or not?” Batty/Larson are brave enough to broach the subject of the LDS black priesthood ban in this context (in which the dialogue includes the phrases “cognitive dissonance” and “racist policy”) as a representation of the tribalism conflicts that have divided rather than united believers in LDS history.
Many other LDS filmmakers would have avoided this subject entirely, either to avoid “controversy” or with the argument that it is irrelevant to the story. But in fact it’s not, as I believe the filmmakers realized themselves — the experience of the native missionaries’ gospel idealism being tempered immediately by finding out about ‘mistakes’ in Church history and the messiness of overcoming ‘tribal’ boundaries even within gospel followers is directly appropriate to the tribalism theme. (And the elder who brings it up has a nice line afterwards: “God wants us to change, to improve, to move forward. When any man changes, God rejoices.”)8The film doesn’t address this, but it would be interesting to know whether there was any ‘tribal’ resentment when Elder Gaye was asked to be companions with Elder Nyanforh originally. Perhaps one or both of them had to overcome their own tribal baggage in serving together in the gospel. Or perhaps working together as brothers in the gospel was never a question for them — that the only true tribal rivalry in Liberia was the one arbitrarily created by the government and the rebels, who demarcated and enforced tribal boundaries simply to consolidate their own power.
There’s some modern relevance to Freetown’s reflections on tribal conflicts for current LDS members. Recent excommunications (for quote-unquote “apostasy”) are fundamentally about enforcing tribal boundaries (justified either as ‘punishment’, or ‘protection’ for the remaining members). In a symbolic way, the inner ‘civil war’ between conservative and liberal Mormons that has grabbed recent headlines marks the key “tribalism” conflict today — the debate about where the tribal boundaries that mark ‘acceptable Mormonism’ really are. There are genuine questions about whether the scriptural admonition to be “of one heart and one mind” is a goal for everyone to work toward, or a call to exclude those of different ‘hearts and minds’ instead.
Even without digging deep into modern symbolism, Freetown represents great filmmaking that is both tense, entertaining, and spiritually enlightening. With this and The Saratov Approach, Garrett Batty has thrust himself into the forefront of LDS filmmakers today. Watch for this film when it’s released in April.
Final Grade: B+
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