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The Other Side of Heaven


Grade:

      Opinion:

        First, a disclaimer: I know Elder John H. Groberg (currently in the Presidency of the Seventy), on whose life this movie is based. I've met him (had dinner with him, in fact) and heard him speak many times.  I might, in fact, rank him among my top five Church speakers of all time.

        As anyone who's heard him speak can tell you, Elder Groberg mentions his experiences in Tonga, both as a missionary and later as a mission president, quite frequently.  While other talks by general authorities tend to be [DOCTRINE] [DOCTRINE] [SCRIPTURE] [DOCTRINE] [DOCTRINE] [EXPERIENCE] structured, Elder Groberg has a more informal, unstructured way of speaking, full of a seemingly random assortment of experiences, stories, and memories from his days on Tonga and elsewhere. When he visited our mission in Taiwan, Elder Groberg spoke in a series of zone conferences...and gave a different talk each time--with each talk seemingly created on the spot containing whatever thoughts and stories he felt like sharing right at that moment.

        Please note, however--and this is the point--despite the somewhat loose organization, Elder Groberg never, EVER rambles aimlessly.  While somewhat unstructured, his talks are never meaningless--when sharing stories from his days in Tonga, he very specifically shares the story first, and then immediately explains why the story is significant and what he learned from it.

        In other words, Elder Groberg's stories have a point.

        Which brings us to "The Other Side of Heaven", a dramatization of events from Elder Groberg's two and a half year mission to Tonga.   Put simply, "The Other Side of Heaven" (hereafter, OSH) is a dull, pointless mess of a movie that commits the unforgivable sin of being unfaithful to the spirit of the man that inspired it.   The late film critic Gene Siskel had a saying about a basic way to judge a movie's quality: "Does watching the film improve upon simply staring at a blank wall for two hours instead?"   While I wouldn't necessarily say staring at a wall would be better than watching OSH--it does have some very nice cinematography--it would be just about as uplifting and inspiring.

          What's the main problem? The movie is, for lack of a better word, 'content-free'.  Oh, things happen in the movie, of course, but unlike Elder Groberg's stories, they don't have any point. They are random events strung together without any meaning or direction. Elder Groberg (the movie version) is basically the same person at the end of his mission than at the beginning, and so is seemingly everyone he came across while he was there.  One wonders, then, (based solely on the movie) what the point of serving a mission is supposed to be...
            I believe the problems in OSH started before filming even began.   Elder Groberg himself writes in the introduction of his book on which the movie is based that "the main purpose of this book is to emphasize the overwhelming need for faith in our lives".   Yet the filmmakers made the decision that they were not going to emphasize the fact that Elder Groberg was LDS, and they were going to remove all mentions of LDS-specific doctrine (Joseph Smith, priesthood, Book of Mormon, etc...) from the screenplay. If you didn't happen to know who Elder Groberg was by name, you wouldn't know he was Mormon from the movie (unless you guessed it from the BYU reference at the beginning, or caught the one mention of the word "Mormon" in the middle).   This is a defensible decision in theory, because the filmmakers might have wanted to expand the potential audience beyond Utah.    But how, then, could they stay true to Elder Groberg's own admitted purpose of 'emphasizing the need for faith' if all religious content was taken out of the movie from the very beginning?   What exactly did the filmmakers hope to accomplish by making this movie to begin with?

            (a) Teach non-members about the LDS Church and its doctrines?

            Obviously not, since they took all of the church doctrine out of the movie. Would a non-member learn anything about the LDS Church from watching OSH, other than we baptize by immersion?

            (b) Show Church members the benefits of serving a mission?

            But what are the benefits? Elder Groberg (the movie version, remember) doesn't appear to have a stronger testimony at the end of the movie than at the beginning, nor is he a better person in any recognizable way.

            (c) Show how missionary work benefits other people?

            Again, name a person from the movie who's better off for the movie Elder Groberg having been there...

            (d) Teach people about Tongan culture?

            I don't buy this one either. What do you learn about Tongan culture from the movie?   How do the Tongan people make their living?   What's the predominant religion?   Are they Christian?   Buddhist?   Muslim?   What's Tongan family life like?  How do Tongan fathers and mothers treat their roles as parents?   How are the children educated?   What are their expectations for the future?   The movie didn't have to be a documentary, but there isn't enough information provided about Tonga to show that this was one of the film's primary purposes for existing.

            (e) Portray some valuable, uplifting experiences that will develop the personal testimony of Latter-Day Saints who watch it?

              Again, this is difficult with all the 'Church stuff' being taken out, not to mention that (movie) Elder Groberg doesn't seem to learn anything from taking part in the events of the movie, so how could you? What experience from the movie could you learn a moral or uplifting lesson from? What scene in the movie teaches you the value of faith, repentance, prayer, baptism, or any gospel principle?

              Let's look at some individual scenes:

              Branch president's daughter gets a 'job': In the middle of the movie, some 'piratey'-looking people land on Tonga and essentially offer to trade alcohol for Tongan women.  The branch president's daughter goes along with them.  First off, the scene is not explained very well.   Is she going as a servant?  A prostitute?  Both?  Is this a temporary 'position', or permanent?   Later in the movie, she reappears again washed up on the shore.   Again, not explained: how did she wind up on shore? Was her job finished? Did she escape? Was there a shipwreck? Notice that after finding her on the beach, her character IS NEVER SEEN OR MENTIONED AGAIN FOR THE REST OF THE MOVIE, which raises the question, what was the point of this sequence?   If her choices were wrong, tell or show us why. (Showing why prostitution isn't a great career move--if that's what it was--shouldn't be that difficult, right?)   If her life would have been better off living Church principles, then show or tell us why... Why introduce her character if you're not going to go anywhere with it...?
                Elder Groberg has a discussion with his counselors: Late in the movie, Elder Groberg is preparing a boat along with his two counselors. One of them mentions something similar to what happened to the branch president's daughter--Tongan women being pressured by elements of native Tongan culture to sell their virtue, essentially. I got my hopes up at this point, thinking now at last the movie was going to discuss a specific characteristic of Tongan culture and how it conflicted with the traditional moral values espoused by the Church. This was a great opportunity for the movie Elder Groberg to discuss the moral issues involved as well as talk with his counselors as to how the Church should deal with this conflict.   But, no...immediately after bringing it up, they argue for a second and later the counselor apologizes. The issue is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN.   The point?
                  Elder Groberg gets 'propositioned' by a Tongan girl, and later scolded by her mother for not accepting: This is actually one the better written and acted part of the movie, and it would be one of the movie's (few) high points if it weren't for the false doctrinal lesson. The mom asks why Elder Groberg wasn't willing to sleep with her daughter. The real answer is "in our Church we believe in the law of chastity which states that there should be no sexual relations outside the bonds of marriage.", but the movie (which, remember, systematically avoids all references to specific LDS doctrine) has Elder Groberg answering "because I have a girlfriend at home and I want to be faithful to her" which, of course, implies that if he DIDN'T happen to have a girlfriend at home, it would be okay.   Close enough, you say?   Then answer this--if a non-member saw this movie, would he/she be able to say afterwards that Mormons believe in no-sex-before-marriage? Or just the opposite...?
                    Elder Groberg meets his mission president...two-thirds into the movie, who chastises him for not keeping up on record-keeping...and then apologizes...and then leaves.   He's never seen again the rest of the movie.  Again...the point?

                    Many of the problems of the film result from a common assumption made by the filmmakers (and many of OSH's defenders)--that true events that happened in the life of a great man are automatically worthy of dramatization in a movie.   In other words, the fact that the events portrayed in the movie really happened doesn't automatically make it good cinema.   Yes, so a typhoon really did hit Tonga while Elder Groberg was serving his mission there, and the supply ship really was late bringing food afterwards. Yes, so Elder Groberg really did have an encounter with his mission president as portrayed in the movie.  Elder Groberg had a plethora of experiences in a two and a half year mission; only a slight fraction of them can be portrayed in a two hour movie, so you have to be judicious in what you choose. Showing something just because it 'really happened' is meaningless unless it serves some purpose in storytelling or has some higher lesson. How did the experience with the typhoon cause Elder Groberg and/or the Tongan people to grow together or reevaluate their lives? What did they learn from the experience?  Lots of things 'happened' during my mission which could be dramatized in a two hour movie, but why would anyone want to watch it?

                    (Note this conference talk from October 2004, where Elder Groberg shares specific experiences that were portrayed in the movie, and immediately explains what meaning he derived from them.  He put more spirituality and meaning in two sentences of explanation, than the movie did in two hours!)

                      Please note I'm not suggesting that the filmmakers should have made Elder Groberg's mission story more 'dramatic' by adding in 'exciting' things that never happened (imagine Elder Groberg grabbing a sword and fighting off more 'piratey'-looking people who have invaded the island and then...wait, never mind...)   My point is quite the opposite: Elder Groberg's life doesn't need any embellishments to be meaningful--it's meaningful already.   His life contains many, many experiences that are instructive and spiritually uplifting.   I've heard them.   His book has them.   Why didn't the movie portray any of them?

                        Content (PG)

                          Some blood from a rat attack, implied off screen nudity--that's about it. My complaints about OSH have nothing to do with 'objectionable content'--at least under the usual definition of 'objectionable'. I wonder sometimes if church members give OSH (as well as other movies, music, and art forms) the benefit of the doubt because it's 'clean'--and they feel compelled to say they liked any movie that's clean without looking critically at whether the movie is actually any good...

                            In-depth Analysis:

                              It's hard doing an in-depth analysis on a movie with no depth, so I'll issue a challenge instead.

                                The Baron's "Other Side of Heaven" Challenge

                                  Did you like The Other Side of Heaven?
                                    Do you consider it one of the best religious movies ever made?

                                    Are you red with rage over all the 'horrible, misguided, untrue' things the Baron said about it?

                                    Well, here's your chance to defend it!

                                    Write a short essay defending "The Other Side of Heaven" and explaining why you liked it.   Post it in the comments section below.   I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm wrong about OSH IF someone can present a compelling case for it.

                                      GROUND RULES: This is a discussion of the MOVIE "The Other Side of Heaven", and thus any defense of it must center around what happened in the MOVIE only. (i.e. nothing about the book it's based on, nor experiences shared in talks or statements given by Elder Groberg himself.)

                                      Understood the movie better because you read the book?  That's great...but doesn't count.   You shouldn't have to read the book to get something out of the movie.   If so, why make the movie in the first place?   Imagine Peter Jackson making just "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Return of the King" and when people are confused about the events in the middle, saying "Well, if they had read the BOOK, they'd know what happened in between..."

                                      Here are some sample topics to choose from for your challenge entry, all of which I would find acceptable:

                                      (1) -- Name one way in which the movie Elder Groberg is a better person at the end than at the beginning (having a wife doesn't count...) List specific scenes/dialogue from the movie which demonstrate this.
                                        (2) -- Name someone else in the movie who benefited (other than simple friendship) from Elder Groberg having been there. Again, list specific scenes and/or lines of dialogue.
                                          (3) -- Which scene(s) from OSH would you use to teach a gospel principle, and why? In other words, if you were giving a sacrament talk or a FHE/Sunday School lesson on [principle X], which event from the movie could you use as an example? ("Remember the scene in OSH where [something happened], that shows us the importance of [principle X]")

                                          (4) -- Describe specifically what purpose you think the movie served and how it fulfilled it. (Encouraging members to serve a mission, teaching non-members about LDS missionary work, teaching people about Tongan culture, etc...)

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