London Film Festival preview: Religulous
Fundamentalist atheism is as old as religion, and possibly time. Back in
a less liberal era, the 16th century, the playwright Christopher Marlowe got into trouble for trashing religion as a translator of the classical author Ovid ("God is a name, no substance, feared in vain"), as well as in his own stuff ("I count religion but a childish toy ").
US comedian Bill Maher shares a lot of Marlowe's sentiments; he believes "faith means making a virtue out of not thinking." Religulous is the result of taking that idea to some very religious people and basically bashing them over the head with it.
This comic documentary really ends up being a case of preaching to the converted. Maher makes his position very clear at the start - he's just as unkeen as Richard Dawkins is on religion. So he goes around the world speaking to people who are big on faith and questions them and mocks them, either directly or through the editing. Which is fine. They do come out with some ridiculous stuff. There's nothing like seeing a two-tonne truck driver tell Maher not to "start disputin' ma god...," as he exits the Truckers' Chapel in, yes, a truck in the carpark of a service station somewhere in the scary middle of America. Y'know, the places that are supposed to like Sarah Palin
Of course, it's an excellent time to release the film, with the battle between people on Maher's side, and the type of people he skewers (broadly speaking), being writ large in the race between Obama and McCain. Maher rightly finds the prevalence of blind faith among US politicians worrying. It's kind of painful when an Arkansas senator Mark Pryor fails miserably to defend his positions on faith and science, then comes out with the zinger, "You don't have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate thought!" Oh sweetheart, we know. We know. At moments like this, it is hard not to side with Maher, on religious fervour being a "neurological disorder." As he points out, hearing God speak to you is just another way of admitting that you have voices in your head.
Maher certainly found an appreciative audience in a group of British journalists at the London Film Festival press screening, who were pretty likely to have very similar views to him. As he puts it, "I think being without faith is a luxury," and he's right, in the cases of the religious people he meets, blind faith comes about as a consequence of not having much else to cling to. However, will anyone who disagrees with him go and see it? He's well-known for his strong views, which are aired on his Friday night show, Real Time. Tell all your religious friends to go and see it! What's that? They said what now?
Still, Maher makes a very funny job out of preaching to the converted, which is what the audience for this film will consist of. Just try not to think of the consequences of the attitudes seen in the film. It's there in a clip the film uses of President Bush: "I believe God wants everybody to be free... and that is part of my foreign policy." Eek.
Religulous will be shown at the London Film Festival on the 18th and 20th October
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