I caught most of this last night, and I watched the first documentary he made with them a few years ago.
I thought it was really interesting to see a lot of the younger people there. I remember in the first documentary there was someone who drove past one of their demonstrations and threw a Burger King or something similar at them, and there was a very young boy who got caught up in it. From one or two of the conversations he filmed with the younger kids, I also couldn't help but feel that they don't really have any beliefs of their own or even seem to fully understand what it is they are taking part in. A lot of them will most definitely end up turning into the older teenagers in the film, who have more than likely been raised to believe that what they are doing is for the best, and believe every word of what they have been taught as impressionable children.
I also like the fact that he didn't pull any punches. It's not like he was pretending to buy into any of it, but rather questioning their ideals and beliefs, telling them to their face that he believes what they are doing to be wrong, and that he finds it offensive, but capturing it all on film.
Of course I found the majority of people he met to be pretty deplorable, but he also managed to get close enough to these people to depict them as people rather than just the monster they may appear to be on TV and in the news. In the documentary that aired last night, where he revisits these people years later, some people have defected and left the church. It was interesting, and kind of heart breaking, to see that girl who has left and now finds herself completely seperated from her family. She said that she misses her family and would like to be able to see them or still have some contact, even if she has quit, and when he then went and interviewed her family there definitely seemed to be conflict. They were suggesting that they believed it was the right to do, to sever all ties with her, but the mother especially didn't have much to say on the subject. She was just telling him "what he (her husband) said" whenever she was asked for her opinion. I couldn't help but wonder if they are simply scared to be seen to contact her.
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