El Tonto Por Cristo – “the fool for Christ” – is the latest film from the Texas-based team of Josh David Jordan and his wife Jessica, exploring the life of Orthodox monks living along the Texas Gulf coast. The nearly two-hour black-and-white film is in the style of European arthouse cinema masters like Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, and Béla Tarr, although non-cinephile American audiences might find it more evocative of filmmakers like David Lynch and Wes Anderson – quirky, bizarre, but also intense and deeply moving.
The audience for Monday’s screening at Icon Cinemas in Colorado Springs was made up largely of local parishioners from Colorado Springs’ Orthodox community. We were given cardboard and foil crowns to wear as we entered the theater.
“Cinema has become so detached, the cinema-going experience,” said Josh, the film’s writer and director. “It’s more just like, buy your ticket online, get your food online, pick it up, no human interaction, and we wanted to give a crown and be like ‘you can wear it if you want to.’ It’s also a part of the film that is represented in the poster – also in the movie. It’s wild because we’ll be at screenings and people will be – like tonight – asking me questions and their crowns are still on. I was in the parking lot last night in Colorado and they’re still wearing their crown. I think it’s just camaraderie. It’s like going to a game and wearing the colors. It’s just like, we’re all being a team tonight.”
Orthodox Christianity has long been known for its insular, ethnic communities – Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc. – but, while still a minority religion in the U.S. compared to Catholicism or various protestant sects, it has seen an influx of converts in recent years. El Tonto Por Cristo melds the ancient, historic faith of monastic Orthodoxy with American culture. The chanted hymns and historic prayers of the liturgy appear interspersed with banjos and blues music, while American monks in cassocks and cowboy boots struggle to live the spiritual life.
“This film is going to challenge you,” warned Jessica, the lead producer of the film, before the screening. “It is going to ask something of you.”
Jessica’s warning, and the film itself, is a kind of metaphor for the experience of America’s Orthodox converts. Like the Divine Liturgy, the film is inscrutable, but profound, beautiful and sad, shot through with overarching themes of life and death and the struggle in between.
“I think with Orthodoxy, we want to see beauty,” said Josh. “There’s so much beauty, and beauty will save the world, and if we can do it one film at a time, I’m happy to do it.”
The film presents a series of vignettes documenting miracles – bees building their honeycombs around, but not on top of, icons of Jesus and Mary, the ineffable fragrance of reposed saints, various kinds of spiritual healing – and stories from Orthodox tradition, like St. Anthony the Great’s battle with the devil, and an adaptation of Anatole France’s version of the medieval poem “The Juggler,” in a modern and uniquely American context.
“I wanted to make a movie for the rest of the people in the world who are Orthodox, that this feels like a foreign film to them,” said Josh. “We took it to Romania and several people said, ‘This feels like a new genre of cinema to us,’ because they’re used to Orthodoxy. They’re used to cinema, European style. And to see a European-style Texas film with banjos was mind-blowing to them. So it’s a gift, I think, for Americans to give to the rest of the world, and also start our own lineage of art that’s inspired by people who happen to be Orthodox. I don’t think I set out to make Orthodox cinemas, movies, but being Orthodox, I think my Orthodox faith is gonna come through, and I think that’s going to be original for Americans.”
Despite being an independent film about a niche religious tradition, there are some familiar faces among the cast. Religious media aficionados will recognize Jordan Walker Ross from Chosen and 1883 as the monk Ambrose, and indie rock fans might be surprised to see the Polyphonic Spree’s Tim DeLaughter as the angel Gabriel. DeLaughter’s band is also part of the film’s soundtrack, scored by Emmy-nominated Orthodox composer Michael Paraskevas.
“He was the only person that would really understand the hymnody of the church, a Texas-American culture, and then taking the Dallas rock band, the Polyphonic Spree, and using their ethereal choir,” explained Jessica, who is also a founding member of the band.
The Jordans’ approach to marketing the film is inspired by their experience in the indie rock world. They are touring with the film, visiting cities for screens through April.
“My wife’s been in the band for 25 years,” said Josh. “My boys were born in the bands. It was a very wild time, a really very good time. It was easy for us to understand this tour, and the merchandise, and the camaraderie, like the crowns – with Polyphonic Spree, it’s people wearing white robes, and so this is people wearing crowns. And they go hand in hand.”
For those unable to catch an in-person screening, the film will be available on streaming services in May.
