Inspired by the replica of Solomon’s Temple built by evangelical Christians in Brazil, Yael Bartana’s video Inferno opens with a menorah and the Ark of the Covenant being helicoptered over São Paulo, followed by a multiracial rainbow of men, women and children flocking to the temple to receive priestly benediction. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, an earthquake shatters the proceedings, and the temple bursts into flames. Is it divine retribution for monumental hubris? For the blasphemy of a high priest in drag? Or it is for the truly unforgivable sin of white-robed congregants wearing Carmen Miranda headpieces made of fake fruit and flowers? Regardless, a denouement shows the temple reduced to an ersatz Wailing Wall, complete with souvenir vendors and worshippers happily praying and dancing.
We might expect something meaty in an Israeli artist’s riff on cross-cultural translations of religious faith, as well as the tenacity of an ancient Semitic cult in the face of millennial catastrophes. But Inferno just seems silly, its medium-budget production generating little heat, especially after Eve Sussman’s The Rape of the Sabine Women and Francesco Vezzoli’s Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula have essayed sword-and-sandal reenactments to much greater effect.
A second video, True Finn, finds a group of immigrants gathered in a snowy retreat to debate questions of national authenticity. The earnest documentary draws too-obvious analogies with other multicultural societies (Israel, anyone?) but seems too much like your standard PBS fare. Watching it, you expect pledge-drive pleading to begin any minute.—Joseph R. Wolin