Wiebo's War

Suspected of bombings and homicide, Wiebo Ludwig, the leader of an insular Christian commune in rural Canada, is not your standard documentary hero. But against his enemy—the oil and gas industries—Ludwig comes across as a Moses-type, right down to the Old Testament beard. Sequestering his family and followers away from society at Trickle Creek, Alberta, to live under religious strictures, Ludwig was—he claims—about to interact more with the external world in the early 1990s when the energy giants invaded, pocking the region with hellish gas wells and pipelines. Ludwig's commune suffered both livestock and human miscarriages due to clouds of toxins, leading the Ludwigs to participate in monkey-wrench sabotage and threats (after fruitless letters to officials in government). But did they actually bomb facilities and shoot a teenager? With the power companies now the region's monolithic employer—and the USA a customer—charges levied here that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and corporate thugs conspired to smear Ludwig as a cult fanatic killer are indeed disturbing. Filmmaker David York restricts the point of view here to input from the charismatic Ludwig patriarch and his disciples, but sympathetic as they are, viewers are likely to question whether the embattled fundamentalists are actually complicit in more than they admit. A gripping eco-drama, despite the fact that it offers no final answers (Ludwig died of esophageal cancer in 2012), this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)