Review: Passage To Zarahemla (B)

Passage to Zarahemla (IMDB, Official Site) is a fantasy adventure movie directed by Chris Heimerdinger, based on his novel.  (Which — disclaimer — I haven’t read.)

It’s an ambitious undertaking — in a genre of film where low-budget local films can easily devolve into camp and unintentional laughter — but largely a successful one.

Whether Heimerdinger’s directorial debut is a one-off production or a start to a productive movie career, Passage to Zarahemla is a decent movie that combines romance, adventure, fantasy, and spirituality into a cohesive whole.

Kerra McConnell and her brother Brock are in dire straits: their dad disappeared 12 years ago, and their mom just overdosed on drugs, leaving them with only each other.  Before they can be separated by California social services, the two of them steal a car and head for their only known relatives:  their father’s Mormon family in a small town in Utah.

While in Utah, Kerra reconnects with a mysterious “imaginary friend” from her past, who turns out not to have been imaginary at all, but a warrior from the ancient Nephite civilization in the 1st century A.D.  They can temporarily meet each other through a mystical rift in time which allows travel between the two time periods 2000 years apart.  The magic portal, however, brings danger as well as friendship as Kerra and her family are soon threatened not only by an imminent invasion of Gadianton robbers from the past, but from gang members in the present, chasing after a stolen backpack of drugs in Brock’s possession.

Considering the different elements and genres mixed together in Passage to Zarahemla, Heimerdinger deserves credit for accomplishing a lot with what was certainly a low budget.    Fantasy / science-fiction films are the genres most susceptible to low budgets due to the need for special effects, and the servicable make-up and “portal” CGI effects bridging the two time periods are good enough to serve the story without calling attention to themselves in a cheesy ‘unintentional comedy’ way.  And while it’s obvious none of the actors in Passage to Zarahemla would be considered true “action stars”, the action elements in the film are competently staged and edited — again, good enough to serve the story without eliciting derisive laughter.

As with many fantasy films, Passage to Zarahemla doesn’t explain the primary conceit (how the magic portal allowing travel between time and space was created nor how it works), nor explain how people who travel between times are able to understand one another’s language even when they are no longer in close proximity to the portal.  Doesn’t really matter — that’s the premise of the film and you just go with it.

The film has a few more adult elements and intense scenes than other LDS films (driving the PG-13 rating), enough so the filmmakers have apparently edited a “Less Intense Version” on the same DVD for sensitive LDS families.  (I didn’t watch that version so can’t comment on the specific differences between them.)

If there’s any question who the “Queen of Mormon Cinema” is, Summer Naomi Smart (as Kerra) should put that to rest.  Between this film and Beauty & The Beast, Summer shows herself to be several cuts above any of her LDS peers in acting ability; whether in skill, timing, or just pure screen presence.  Her performance keeps the movie on a sure footing, even when some of the plot elements stretch credibility.

(Her strengths as an actress allow us to overlook the obvious casting problem:  Kerra is apparently supposed to be 17 in the movie, and Summer — who had already graduated from *college* by the time this movie was filmed — is…um, not 17.  This makes some of the dialogue a little ludicrous when her social worker says to her with a straight face, “You’re not OLD enough get a job, or take care of your brother!” As if many LDS women weren’t already married with two kids at her age.)

For most of the running time, the “Mormon” connection in Passage to Zarahemla is irrelevant (i.e. the movie could have been rewritten as “Passage to Tenochtitlan” with the same basic plot and characters with minimal change).  Kerra and her brother end up living with a Mormon family, but that family’s specific LDS beliefs or practices are irrelevant to the plot.  The film’s one turn towards outright spiritual content comes in the middle when Kerra asks Grandpa Lee about the ancient civilization her friend Kiddoni belongs to, and receives a copy of the Book of Mormon.   She spends time reading, and the film portrays her focusing more on the spiritual teachings of the Book of Mormon instead of her original goal of learning about Nephite history.  (This is accompanied by an out-of-place EFY-style song on the soundtrack — a departure from the other musical elements within the film).

Unfortunately, this isn’t followed up on at all later in the film.  Further discussions of Kerra’s spiritual or religious beliefs are dropped making these middle scenes kind of a red herring — something probably designed to appeal to the LDS target audience without having a clear place in the story.

It’s a fair question, actually, how the events of the film would impact religious beliefs for its characters.  How would a magical portal connecting two points in time fit within a traditional LDS view of the plan of salvation and God’s role in the universe?   Would this cause characters to believe in God more?   Or less?  Or perhaps either, depending on interpretation?  (Obviously, as portrayed in the film, having a direct connection between the Book of Mormon text and the civilizations behind the portal would be faith-promoting in a specifically LDS context, but if we presume no magical ability to communicate names like “Nephite” and “Gadianton”, how would LDS families react to a portal to an ancient time within their religious understanding of God and the universe?)

My one primary complaint about plotting in Passage to Zarahemla concerns the two antagonist groups causing dramatic tension for our heroine — the Gadianton robbers and the gang members from California.  Even though I liked the film, this seems to be one antagonist too many, and I think the gang members are clearly the odd ones out here:

(1) Their presence has nothing to do with the central conceit of the story (a mystical portal to the past, near a small town in Utah).  The Gadiantons have direct ties to the portal (and the disappearance of Kerra and Brock’s dad) and a clear place in the story.  By comparison, the gang members are superfluous.

(2) The “MacGuffin” (the backpack with drugs in Brock’s hands) that drives the gang part of the story presents some obvious plot holes.  Brock’s friend “Spree” tells him he’s “quitting the game” (the gang and the drug trade presumably), but then gives his backpack to Brock even though he has no idea where Brock is going nor if he’s ever going to hear from him again.  What exactly is Spree’s plan, then?   Afterwards, he remains in Brock’s old house where he (a) knows the other gang members are going to look for him, (b) doesn’t have the backpack to either sell himself and get money, or return to the gang leader if he’s discovered.  How is that “quitting the game”?  (There was no point in stealing the backpack in the first place, then.  He’d have been better off without it.)   Even considering Spree’s character is not portrayed as being the sharpest tool in the shed, that’s a remarkably dumb and ill-conceived plan.

(3) This leads to Passage To Zarahemla’s second remarkably dumb plot point:  The film doesn’t have an easy way of getting the gang members to Utah to menace our heroine and her brother again, so it has Brock call Spree’s mobile, hear someone he’s never talked to before give him a line about “Spree asked me to take his messages” and then have Brock tell the guy, “here’s exactly where I am and how to get here”.  Nobody’s THAT stupid, right?  (More realistically, Brock could have suspected something and hung up, and the gang could have reverse-engineered his address from the number in the cell phone memory, or something more reasonable.  As it is, this is a pretty contrived way to get the gang members back in the story.)

(4) The tonal difference in the scenes when the gang members are around is out-of-sorts with the rest of the movie.  The Gadianton robbers are largely played as bumbling comic relief, even though they still pose threats of harm to Kerra and her family.  In contrast, the gang members are truly dangerous and menacing, including one scene with an attempted rape — almost as if they’ve jumped over from another movie entirely.   The film never quite reconciles these vastly divergent tones, and since the Gadianton robbers provide enough dramatic tension near the end anyway, the necessity for the gang members being in the story at all is called into question.

Regardless, Passage To Zarahemla is a success — one that pushes LDS film in a new direction, and hopefully marking the start of a new career in directing for Chris Heimerdinger.

Final Grade: B

Additional Notes and Comments:

(1) Multi-talented Chris Heimerdinger not only wrote and directed, but also did the editing, the music, the singing, and has a key supporting role in the movie as Kerra and Brock’s missing dad.  He’s not bad as an actor, although his physique in the movie is not nearly gaunt enough for a person supposedly lost in an ancient land as a “slave” for 12 years.

(2) Some remaining plot questions:

• Since Kerra’s dad disappeared on a hunting trip with friends (who are still around to testify), not out with his wife somewhere, on what basis does Kerra’s aunt hold Kerra’s mom responsible for her brother’s “murder”?
• Kiddoni (Kerra’s Nephite friend from the past) says he’s stationed in the area where the rift is as the lone sentry for the Nephites, far removed from any local settlement.  If so, how would he have been living in that same area 12 years previous when he and Kerra were still kids?
• How come Kerra’s family didn’t think about using the three machine guns they picked up from the gang members when the Gadiantons were invading their house?  As author Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” — even a brief use of automatic weaponry in the presense of natives of 1st century AD would probably have been enough to scare them off.

(3) From the Mormons-Attempting-To-Comment-On-Mormonism-From-A-Non-Mormon-Perspective category, Kerra explains to her brother that Mormons are “weird” because:  they skip meals occasionally, are “always praying”, and “are required to keep a year’s supply of food”.  In real life, I suspect those wouldn’t be in the top ten for reasons real non-Mormons think Mormons are “weird”.

(4)  In one scene, Brock is playing against his younger cousin in Chris Heimerdinger’s Passage to Zarahemla board game — nice product placement! — and is asked, “Is Samuel in the Book of Mormon a Nephite or a Lamanite?” Brock gives her a blank look.  “A Lamanite.” she says, “*Everyone* knows that.” — whether intentional or not, a clever and subtle comment on the insularness of Utah LDS culture.

(5) Kerra asks Grandpa Lee what a “Nephite” is.  He responds with a somewhat surprised expression, “Where did you hear THAT word?”  (“I don’t know — maybe because I’ve been living with an active LDS family for a while and that’s a fairly common word they’d say regularly?”)  Or perhaps: “I heard it while playing Chris Heimerdinger’s Passage To Zarahemla Board Game!”

(6) Chris Heimerdinger is pro-evolution!  (…or at least recognizes creation and evolution are not contradictory):  Kerra asks Grandpa Lee about jungles in Utah and he replies “Maybe 65 million years ago…”.