by: Sienna Richardson
Contemporary America, studies are showing, is becoming less and less religious, with younger people in particular straying from religious tradition. Yet it poses a new problem when people of that generation start having children of their own: what type of spiritual and religious beliefs will they raise their families with? German father and director Marc Burth confronts us with these questions in the documentary “Lost in Religion,” as he embarks on a personal journey to explore what a variety of religious and spiritual practices could offer his two young children.
In the film, Burth introduces us to his religiously diverse family. His mother is a non-practicing Jewish Holocaust survivor, while his sister has strong spiritual practices, his mother-in-law is Catholic, he has family who are devout Jews living in Israel, and his wife’s family is Muslim. Everyone, it seems to him, has different opinions about what any religion, or the lack thereof, will do for his children. A self-described “nonbeliever,” Burth visits everything from a Buddhist center in Germany to a Germanic Neo-pagan, to an Atheist bus tour, all the way to the Wailing Wall and his own grandmother’s grave in Israel. At each stop, he speaks with leaders, religious individuals, and family members about what their faith or spiritual practices do for them, and asks advice about how to raise his children. Burth injects his personality and sense of humor into the film through repeated shots of himself attempting to ride his children’s toy rocking horse at stressful moments, and through upbeat music choices that keep the tone light.
Technically, the film is fairly straightforward. The cinematography and editing aren’t by any means groundbreaking, and there are some shots that feel just a touch too much like home videos to flow with the professional-quality interview footage. But the film simply isn’t about those things. Burth, it seems, wants to tell a universal human story in an organic way. As viewers, we simply feel we are being taken along on a much quicker version of this man’s personal journey, capturing the snippets that he found most important at each step of the way.
“Lost in Religion” takes on questions of massive scale, as a description of the film poses them: “Is there a god? To whom does he reveal himself? And most importantly, why doesn’t he reveal himself to me?” Certainly, it is nearly impossible to examine these questions without offending people, and Burth’s choices of clips from each religious site are in no way representative of any faith as a whole. Yet, this film achieves a remarkable feat, examining these daunting questions with such a lighthearted, curious manner that the journey is funny and fresh, despite the deeply contentious subject matter.
