Beyond the Gates of Splendor (2002)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Jim Hanon

Writer:

Jim Hanon (writer)

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

a story beyond tragedy... beyond reason... beyond imagination

Plot:

A beautifully crafted documentary about five young missionaries who were martyred by a savage tribe of Indians in the mid 1950s and the heroic effort of reconciliation that has followed.

Plot Keywords:

1950s | Missionary | Waodani Tribe | Revenge As Social Custom | Martyr

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Steve Saint	...	Himself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Carmela	...	Herself
Dawa	...	Herself
Dayumae	...	Herself
Frank Drown	...	Himself
Kathy Saint Drown	...	Herself
Elisabeth Elliot Gren	...	Herself
Dave Howard	...	Himself
Kimo	...	Himself
Olive Fleming Liefeld	...	Herself
Christopher Maleki	...	King Cyrus
Marilou McCully	...	Herself
Mincaye	...	Himself
Col. Malcolm Nurnberg	...	Himself
Ompodae	...	Herself
Paa	...	Himself
Carole Robarchek	...	Herself
Clayton Robarchek	...	Himself
Ginny Saint	...	Herself
Jaime Saint	...	Himself
Jesse Saint	...	Himself
Rachel Saint	...	Herself
Valerie Elliot Shepard	...	Herself
Tementa	...	Himself
Marj Saint Van Der Puy	...	Herself
Barbara Youderian	...	Herself

Also Known As:

Beyond the Gates (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some violent content and thematic elements.

Runtime:

USA:96 min

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Singapore:PG | USA:PG-13

Company:

Bearing Fruit Entertainment

Trivia:

The small film team spent 17 days filming interviews in the Amazon basin in Ecuador. They arrived there slowly, as anyone else arrives there. First by bus, then propeller plane, then hours in a canoe.

Quotes:

Elisabeth Elliot Gren: We were both Greek Majors. We saw each other every day. Every once in a while he would come along and he'd just slap his books down on the table and he'd sit down next to me and he'd say, "Well, where we were today?" And I said, "Well, What do you mean, 'Where are we?' You know I'm on this page and you're six pages behind or something."

Movie Connections:

Followed by End of the Spear (2005)

Compelling Documentary!

This is the most compelling documentary and story I have ever experienced. I was only vaguely familiar the story. The idea of going to live with people who killed one of my loved ones is difficult to understand. Even the idea of why the families were there in the first place is foreign to our American culture. The music in this documentary sounds like movie music, and the people in the story are amazing, the north and south Americans.

Clearly this amazing tribe would have wiped themselves out if it were not for the missionaries. They should make a feature film about this story.