True Films 3.0 - Kevin Kelly

Jonestown
It’s so bizarre. On the command of their minister, nine hundred extremely
happy people drank cyanide-laced Kool-Aid and killed themselves and
their children in group solidarity. The scale of this discombobulation is so
huge that “to drink the Kool-Aid” is now shorthand for believing what the
group says. But how could this happen? How could a black church led
by a white man build a model, indeed admirable, interracial commune
in the jungle and then kill themselves overnight? This very disturbing
story is told in the words of members who survived. It’s about the dark
power of faith and hope. It’s about cults and authoritarianism. It’s about
how evil slips away from good, so that good people become monsters. It
almost explains the Nazis. It’s a wrenching true film.
I find that the bonus deleted scenes on most DVDs are better off remaining
deleted. But on Jonestown, some of the most telling interviews are
inexplicably in the deleted-scene bin. I am thinking of the ones where the
surviving members say, “If I had been there that day, there is no doubt
in my mind that I too would have drunk the Kool-Aid,” and then explain
why. No student of the human condition should miss seeing this story.
This film might even save us from some future despot.
By Stanley Nelson
2006, 86 min.
Available from Amazon
Rent from Netflix
The horror. Hundreds of dead lay on the
grounds hours after they drank poison
(above). In better times, church members
were happy, well-adjusted and integrated
(right). Jim Jones (below) under questioning
a few days before the disaster.
91