Exceptional artistic and historic care blend with charming cinematography, to render a visual experience that transcends into an emotional one. Not just one church's story. A universal story. Youth against the world. Virtue against violence. Anyone can relate to this film. It combines all the elements.<br /><br />You get a light-hearted view of one young man's experience in a remote and unusual part of the world, at a time when the world was just about to start shrinking. There are family values. Individual challenges. Real-life stresses hurled from nature and cultural contrast.<br /><br />The photography is utterly charming in its balance. It is not a slow film, any more than "Castaway" was a slow film. The difference between these two films is that one pits a single man against the world and against himself, while the other pits a young man against an utterly alien life which he manages to blend into his own. The "slowness" of the Pacific island life is micro-viewed to reveal that there are actually exciting and humorous details of daily life; while macro-viewed to show the occasional punctuation of extreme chaos and challenge,change and redirection.<br /><br />Everyone wins in this film. Conflicts range from mutual culture and social shock, to static compromise, and eventually up to complete resolution.<br /><br />See a South Pacific adventure that is, for once, totally based on real life and real historic occurrences.