A murder is committed in a small Canadian town, while the soundtrack plays wonderful songs from the unknown Bruce Peninsula. Behold: Small Town Murder Songs.
As a sworn atheist (and apostate catholic) I always have some reservations about religiously inspired art. I fear the wooliness, the praise, and the submission.
And yet I can not deny the fact that beautiful, compelling and even overwhelming religious art has been made. From Bach’s Johannes Passion (to name another Passion for a change) to 16 Horsepower’s Black Soul Choir. True, deeply felt, religious music, that calls to you from the edge of the abyss.
The atmosphere of Small Town Murder Songs is largely determined by the amazing music of Bruce Peninsula, which is not unlike 16 Horsepower. Music with an Old Testament resonance, a mixture of folk and gospel, plaintive vocals and thundrous drums. Those songs are given time to be heard, while we explore the area where the story is going to unfold.
A small town in Canada, surrounded by plains and hills, where a Mennonite community resides. A closed group of people, who still speak a corrupted version of German. A community that deplores physical violence. One of the town’s policemen once crossed the line and even though he became a born-again Christian afterwards, married to a pious woman and trying his hardest at work, his family still shuns him.
Then a body is found, for the first time in living memory. Slowly you see the pressure mount behind the calm face of the tight-lipped cop – a formidable role by (Swedish) Peter Stormare, known from various Coen Brothers films. He seeks peace in the church, looks at the cross on the wall. Bible verses regularly appear to the viewer, things like ‘Repent and testify to your faith’ and “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also’.
Why do all these Christian references and themes not bother me? Why do I have no trouble with this appeal to the otherworldly? I think it’s because the film stays so empathically grounded. In Small Town Murder Songs, faith is not used as an easy way to forgiveness, but rather as a confrontation with your own weaknesses and the vindictiveness of the community. The Old rather than the New Testament.
Nevertheless, this film, as Variety rightly pointed out, is more than the sum of its parts. Not religious in the sense of bearing testimony or converting, but morally and spiritually. A morality of doing battle and struggling, with a spirituality created out of blood and clay. Is it going to be guilt and even more guilt or guilt and punishment – and if it’s the latter, what will happen next? That is the policeman’s dilemma. And even an atheist can feel that.
+ Youtube Short outtake of Small Town Murder Songs (i.e. not in the film)
+ Youtube A slightly nervous (and therefore adorable) Q&A with director Ed Gass-Connelly in a cinema after a screening.
+ bruce-peninsula.com The homepage of the Canadian indie band Bruce Peninsula, responsible for the soundtrack of Small Town Murder Songs. Three songs you can listen to from BP Discography are also in the film.
+ thebrucepeninsula.com I assume this is the nature area for which the band Bruce Peninsula is named, an enclosed peninsula in Ontario, close to the border with the United States.
+ Youtube The late 16 Horsepower, with the song Black Soul Choir. Frightening lyrics. ‘Every man is evil yes and every man is a liar/unashamed with the wicked tongues sing/in the black soul choir.’ And he means it too.
+ Youtube The beginning of Bach’s Johannes Passion, Herr, Unser Herrscher, with images of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.
