Music

Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus On AUX DOCS

by Allan Tong

British commercials director, Andrew Douglas, was so enchanted by the country song, “The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus,” that he set out to explore the American South to find the source of this music.

Shot on painterly 16mm film, Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus takes us on a meandering tour of mobile homes, prisons, truck stops, biker bars, coalmines, corrugated shacks and especially churches. We’re in God’s country, and everyone is a believer who is saved or needs saving. The film explores the world of poor Southern whites and how religion guides their lives. Their beliefs are expressed through song, and this film offers some righteous rockabilly, white Gospel, banjo-picking, blues and country sung by Jim White, The Handsome Family, Johnny Dowd, Lee Sexton, 16 Horsepower and David Johansen (formerly of the New York Dolls). Acting as tour guide is novelist Harry Crews spinning dark anecdotes of Southern Gothic.

As an outsider, Douglas romanticizes the South and his film loses focus towards the end, but Wrong-Eyed Jesus captures some gritty performances. His movie is a pleasure for the ears if you love American roots music, and it succeeds in tapping into the music’s fire-and-brimstone soul.