The Search: Manufacturing Belief (2019)

(On TV, April 2021) Pulling together a documentary is harder than you think, especially when it comes to tackling a big sprawling subject and then making sure that the focus remains on the topic. So it is that while The Search: Manufacturing Belief is interesting in its questioning of religion, belief, awe and control, it often feels so scattered as to defy a cohesive argument. Much of the film is structured around a dramatic recreation of a Catholic youth retreat weekend that writer-director Patrick Payne experienced in his teenage years — the Cursillo movement (aka “The Search”) that uses techniques eerily similar to mind control in order to produce a feeling of awe and attachment to a doctrine. (If you start going “uh-oh” at some of the things that happen, well done — the process is well known among cults, military forces and pyramidal schemes.)  Alongside the dramatic recreation of the weekend retreat are interviews tackling the topic of religion and awe, and trying to pick apart the differences between two often-associated emotions. Perhaps the best thing about The Search is how it tries to bridge an understanding between believers and non-believers — everyone interviewed (whether they’re associated with religion or not) brings a rationalist approach to the conversation, and the documentary deals with ideas in a robust manner. Of course, this ends up meaning going here and there, sometimes with atheist crusaders (one of whom seems a bit too quick severing any link between chunks of carbon and an overall sense of morality) and sometimes poking at new ideas without exploring them. It’s both really interesting and frustrating given the scope of the topic. But perhaps that’s inevitable in considering such an intensely personal topic: despite having been raised Catholic (and mentions of “The Search” had me thinking, “hey, didn’t some of my friends attend one of those…?”), I don’t have much to do with organized religion these says but get me started on libraries, tourism and/or the best science-fiction conventions I have attended and I can guarantee you that the language I’m going to use is going to sound a lot like the one used by believers at the end of their retreat. We all have our truth, and we all have the capacity to be awed when we approach what is central to us. The Search strikes an appropriately sophisticated tone in approaching the topic, but it’s almost by design that it wouldn’t get to its core for everyone… it keeps a sense of mystery!