Don't expect a slick polished O Brother, Where Art Thou? when checking out Andrew Douglas' impressionistic documentary Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, but for the most part you'll see the real deal--;vignettes of Southerners and authentic rural songs imitated in the Coen brothers' popular film. Perhaps only a European could fashion such a southern gothic mix of church people, tattooed bar patrons, laborers, and prisoners against a backdrop of swamps, mountains, and juke joints. This won't be as widely watched as Douglas' dreadful The Amityville Horror, but this debut feature is a much stronger film that deserves recognition.

Calling this a documentary is a bit of a misnomer, as Douglas splices staged music numbers into his travelogue footage to paint his surreal homage to the Deep South--in the wake of Katrina one especially haunting image features the Handsome Family duo mournfully singing from the porch of a floating house on the Mississippi River. Note: these American Gothic looking "Southern" singers actually hail from Albuquerque, New Mexico. On the other hand, Memphis musician Johnny Dowd appears multiple times in various venues, clearly signaling that the various musical interludes are not chance encounters.

The idea for the film was sparked when Douglas first heard alt-country singer Jim White's debut album The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus. Douglas contacted the singer to find out where this music came from, and White agreed to act as back roads tour guide for his adopted region--you just don't get the "real South" by traveling the Interstate.

Realizing that Southerners will never open their hearts if you drive up in a Lexus, White commandeers a battered "Dukes of Hazard" style 1970 Chevy for the road trip, weaving entertaining axioms and anecdotes along the way--from the Louisiana bayou to the mountains of Kentucky and Virginia. Growing up in northern Florida, White left to explore the world only to discover how much he loved and missed the region while in Amsterdam. Thus, he serves as an excellent guide--a man who truly appreciates its quirkiness and keenly observes the region from a "foreign" viewpoint. He loves the old junkyards and stops to buy a Jesus statue for $65 that sticks out of the trunk until the last frame of the film.

One of the best sequences comes from writer Harry Crews when he tells how they used the old Sears & Roebuck catalog when it came in the mail. They knew those weren't anything like the people they knew since they were all perfect while everyone in their community was missing a leg, an eye, or was mutilated some how. So, they would invent stories about the catalog models—explaining how they were related to each other, creating conflicts and feuds so that those people essentially "came to life" and became much more real.

Anyone visiting the South cannot ignore Jesus. White explains that there's no middle ground in the South—either love Jesus or be condemned to inhabit Hell for eternity. Two choices is all you have, though he does show how some backsliders do frequent the local bars on Saturday night before dragging themselves into church for forgiveness the following morning. He doesn't take us into any laid back church either--that just doesn't fit the real Southern tradition. Instead, leave your brain at the door and enter the Pentecostal world. No in-depth theology today. Justr loud emotional pleas, ecstatic singing and jumping, quivering trances, speaking in tongues, tears of joy--all fixed on Salvation--Hallelujah!

Not everyone buys into the "good" life however, as we see from the Saturday night bar filled with NASCAR patrons or the hopping juke joint where hard driving blues and beer keeps the place hopping. People who venture beyond these two boundaries may find themselves in a place like the Concordia Parish Correctional Facility that the film visits. Imprisoned either for drugs or burglary, the convicts express the common theme that they did it primarily because of boredom--not doubt due to selective editing to paint the pervasive portrait of a South that places great restrictions on lifestyle and self-expression.

The songwriters aren't bored; they find inspiration for their lyrics from daily life. White takes us on a meandering tapestry of Southern life to show how he was able to come up with ideas for his music, showing enough interesting material that enables Douglas to construct a compelling film. Paralleling Errol Morris' eccentric Vernon, Florida, this film weaves a mosaic of background material for roots music while illuminating much of the rarely seen heart of the South. Due out on DVD in March, Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus is also booked to appear on the Sundance Channel in 2006.