Most
churches would be happy if you volunteered to help with the next potluck
dinner. They would hardly expect you to commit to a billion years of indentured
servitude. Nor do most credible religions hide their precepts behind a pay
wall. There are Ten Commandments for all Catholics and Protestants, no matter
how much you put in the collection plate. The “Church” of Scientology operates
differently. Money and secrecy are deeply ingrained in the organization’s
culture and modus operandi. Louis Theroux approached Scientology, hoping to get
an insider’s perspective, but they told him to go pound sand. Instead, he
experiences what it is like to be a target of their “Squirrel Buster”
harassment teams in John Dower’s My
Scientology Movie, presented by BBC and TV Nation alumnus Louis Theroux, which
screens during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
Theroux
never sent out to do a muck-raking expose. He really wanted to understand the
mind-set of Scientology’s true believers. Instead, they threw a bunch of muck
at him. Stuck on the outside looking in, Theroux hopes to glean insights into
the closed world through a series of dramatic re-enactments of the most
controversial episodes of Scientology history. To help him cast key roles,
Theroux enlists Marty Rathbun, who served as the Church’s former Inspector
General (basically, the chief inquisitor), before breaking with Scientology’s
chairman-of-the-board, David Miscavidge.
The
resulting re-enactments are almost jaw-droppingly surreal, but also pretty
darned scary, in no small measure thanks to the wild-eyed intensity of Andrew
Perez playing the part of Miscavidge. Yet, the behavior of the Church-recruited
camera crews dogging Theroux and Rathbun are even more bizarre. Through their
hostile stalker tactics, the so-called “Squirrel Busters” (Scientologists use
more jargon than George Smiley’s People) essentially prove everything defectors
like Rathbun claim. However, Theroux does not let his technical advisor off the
hook either, diplomatically challenging Rathbun on his role developing the invasive
tactics that are now being used against him.
There is
an absurdity to Theroux’s interaction with Scientology’s finest that would almost
be comical, if it were not so sinister. The frequent spectacle of one
camera-operator filming another is worthy of Samuel Beckett and/or Charlie
Chaplin. You have to give Theroux credit for putting himself out there. He did
not simply splice together some footage and layer on his voice-overs. Several
times he faces down high-ranking church enforcer Catherine Fraser (the ex-wife
of former Church staffer Jeff Hawkins, who also advises Theroux on Scientology’s
extremes), who appears to be charged with keeping his cameras off a stretch if
public road bordering their complex.
