(4/5)

[This documentary is the opening film of this season's Doc Soup series in Toronto. For those interested it will be playing Wednesday, October 6 @ 6:30 & 9:15 pm at the Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West]

Many a family has endured the hardship of divorce but few have felt what it’s like to lose one’s family entirely. The thousand or so teens exiled from Warren Jeffs’ polygamy commune know all too well this infliction. Those individuals who refuse to obey the pathologically rigid and self-serving teachings of Warren Jeffs’ revisionist Mormonism (Fundamental Latter Day Saints) are voluntarily or involuntarily displaced from the Colorado commune and forced to live a life isolated from the close-knit community. For them, the commune was their entire universe. With scarcely any knowledge beyond the propaganda they were taught, the so-called Sons of Perdition enter a Brave New World, real-life John Savages trying to contend with the emotional and psychological baggage of their new lives.

In their documentary, Sons of Perdition, Jennilyn Merten and Tyler Measom follow several young teens in their first years of exile. Joe, Sam and Bruce live stalled lives, sometimes filling the void with consumerism or bouts of nihilism; when the distractions fade, they inevitably find themselves drawn closer to the place they once lived, pleading with family members to join them in the outside world. For fear of being ostracized and losing their religious station, parents resist the temptation of helping their exiled sons. Much of the drama of the film occurs when the line between their two worlds are breached, and like something out of a prison break, family members of the boys in desperation flee.

Much of the media spectacle of the Warren Jeffs’ story centers upon the polygamy, rape and underage marriages that are endorsed in this cult, and while those aspects are indeed touched upon in Sons of Perdition (particularly as some of the daughters make their escape through the help of our protagonists) what sets this documentary apart is its intimate focus on the day-to-day experience of former cult-members trying to readjust to regular society. With a naiveté reminiscent of the Sudanese “Lost Children” experiencing American modernism in God Grew Tired of Us, the teens marvel over the wealth of experiences the outside world affords. This veers into the sad and creepy when Joe and Sam optimistically try to enlist in the army with little worldly knowledge, all too eagerly jumping from one indoctrination to the next. Struggling to get into school and make something of their lives, the boys find themselves forever stalled in the process. Trust issues carry over from their abandonment, making it nearly impossible to accept life in an adoptive family.

Sons of Perdition is a fascinating glimpse of the emotional purgatory these kids endure. Stylistically, the documentary is nothing particularly remarkable, but what stays with you are the stories and moments of these individuals trying to break-free of their profound loss. As Sam says late in the documentary, what do you do with all of these childhood memories of a life you lived and can never have again? Who do you share them with? This dimension to the drama is raw and powerful, it gives a face to the suffering caused by Warren Jeffs and his followers. In a day and age in American politics when religious fanatics are taking over the discourse, a documentary about the collateral damage of misplaced belief is as urgent as it is timely.

Check out the trailer: