Better known as the sister of Ralph and Joseph, Sophie Fiennes is beginning to develop a reputation as a documentary filmmaker. Building on the promise of her debut short about the Dogme 95 movement, "Lars from 1-10", "Hoover Street Revival" focuses on a very different cultural phenomenon.
In Los Angeles, Bishop Noel Jones is a vital force. A one man Jesus army, Jones has earned himself a cult reputation for his entertaining and impassioned sermonising - like a cross between James Brown and Bill Cosby - at the Greater Bethany Community Church.
Using Jones as her starting point, Fiennes takes us on an intimate, though scattershot, tour of downtown LA as she interviews everyone from Jones' assistants to homeless bag ladies on the street.
Refusing to add any voiceover narration, or speak to Jones directly (he's only once seen off-stage), Fiennes abdicates her authorial position, juxtaposing the rampant crime of the ghetto with Jones' religious fervour, and leaving us to draw our own conclusions. Paradoxically, this may seem like the film's biggest weakness, but it's also its greatest strength.
In an interview, Fiennes claimed she was mesmerised by Jones' electrically charged performances. Yet, between the COPS-style footage of crack addicts and down-and-outs running foul of the law, and the measured look at Jones' burgeoning sideline in flogging tapes of his sermons, it's possible to read "Hoover Street Revival" as a film that's as much about Jones' failure to offer his congregation anything better than hope for paradise in the next world as his preaching gifts.
Surely, the drive-by victims, junkies and street people that dominate this film would find more benefit in a dose of political radicalism or social justice than Jones's entertaining, but façile, sermonising?
That Fiennes feels confident enough to allow us space to develop such contradictory interpretations suggests she's a filmmaker to watch out for.
Hoover Street Revival (2003)
