God's Dominion - By the Word of God
1993 · 50m · Canada
Directed by Marrin Canell
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, tender
Anne Goldberg joins the Lubavitcher Orthodox community to her family's shock while Hutterite Karl Kleinsasser hesitates before total commitment. Their orthodox choices anchor an examination of faith defined by the word of God.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 50-minute essay film about Orthodox commitment that could've been a preachy tract instead becomes genuinely strange—two people choosing total devotion while the camera refuses to judge them, which is somehow more unsettling than any critique would've been.
Canell's essay film sits squarely in the Grierson documentary tradition while interrogating it, using the intimacy of personal testimony to trouble easy statements about faith and belonging; the formal restraint—letting language and presence do the work—marks considered filmmaking that respects both subject and viewer intelligence.
The entire film hinges on the decision to let long silences and the subjects' own words carry the weight rather than overlay narration or score, which transforms what could be sociological data into something that actually *feels* like the texture of devotion.