Documentary on long time evangelist Harold Camping and his failed prediction of the rapture occurring on May 21st, 2011. 'Apocalypse Later: Harold Camping vs The End of the World' is a documentary by Zeke Piestrup who got Camping to agree to let him follow him around with a camera and interview him many times over the days and weeks leading up to May 21st 2011, and ultimately a couple of times there after. I wasn't super impressed with the documentary as a whole or the way it was put together, the interviews with Camping and his associates are interspersed with contextual ones with Biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman, for me a lot of this was basic stuff but I recognize it wouldn't be for many of this films viewers.
The scenes with Camping among his supporters at what many of them expected to be their last church service is the standout sequence in the film, a fascinating peaking into a subculture in a very expectant time. What surprised me most about the film was how much I liked Camping, he seems like a nice guy. Not the bomb thrower one might expect, he comes across a kindly, pleasant fellow, not aggressive or mean, he was just convinced the world was gonna end and thought people should know. Though he hedged on the exact date for a number of months following this 'great disappointment', Camping ultimately owned it, admitted he was wrong and confessed attrition at his presumption and it seems sincere. I'm not sure I could really recommend this full documentary to a general audience, but the footage of that would be last service and the pot luck that followed is a fascinating slice of life. **1/2
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