A documentary by Andrew Douglas. Featuring Jim White, David Johansen, and the Handsome Family. Unrated. Plays Thursday to Sunday, March 2 to 5, at the Pacfic Cinémathí¨que

Near the end of Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, a mordantly provocative and darkly tuneful documentary about sin and soul in southern music, singer-songwriter and all-purpose tour guide Jim White insists, "If you're looking for some kind of essential truth about the South, you're not gonna find it."

Okay, but the search itself has a basic value, as seen in this idiosyncratic documentary made for the BBC by director Andrew Douglas (the 2005 Amityville Horror) and inspired by White's similarly titled 1997 album. When the film isn't taking time out for musical visits with the likes of the Handsome Family, David Johansen, and Johnny Dowd-a horrible singer but one great talker-there are monologues that add new twists to the southern gothic tradition. These include born-again crazies at Jesus' own truck stop; a purveyor of musical saw known as Trailer Bride; and Harry Crews, an aging teller of literary yarns who says of his Georgia childhood: "Stories was everything and everything was stories."

Many of its scenes consist of the British crew's visits to examples of the local cultures of Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida. These include scary places like clapboard holy-roller halls and cut-and-shoot taverns-places where the survivors limp their way to church the next morning for another shot of temporary redemption.

Paired with the film is Be Here to Love Me, a sometimes whimsical if ultimately downbeat look at the self-destructive life and truncated art of the late Townes Van Zandt, seemingly the real-life Texas model for The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico, a fictional Canadian variant of the hell-bent guitar hero. Kris Kristofferson appears here as well, again deeply amused that he's not the whisky-breathed singer being eulogized.