I think I've walked out of maybe two films in my life. This was the second one. Though I am very interested in new age spirituality, I'm not sure how so many people found this film to be enlightening...I have to think they're the new age equivalent of those wide-eyed faithful Christians who claim to see the Virgin Mary when the light bounces off of a stained glass window just the right way. Enthralled by bright shiny objects with even the slightest whiff of spirituality, in other words.
There were probably some philosophical gems in here somewhere, but they were completely obliterated by incoherent, tortured plot, schizophrenic jump cuts (sometimes a dozen in a single monologue) and constant, gratuitous special effects, which were a mash-up of scenes from The Mummy and Lord of the Rings mixed with every clichéd new age symbolism you can think of, without any explanation of relevance. Within the first five minutes, the main character has met his spiritual master/father from another life and started having unexplained flashbacks on heroic previous lives in Atlantis, medieval castles, Petra, etc. The next hour adds little to that but changes of geographical location. Robert Easton plays the all-knowing Don Juan-esquire spiritual teacher, but with little originality or endearing qualities, and most of his attempts at cheekiness fall flat (especially his impersonation of John Wayne). Jsu Garcia, our hero, contributes the only decent acting, but the film offers little opportunity for him to develop his character or for us to sympathize with him.
Perhaps this isn't the movie-maker's fault...perhaps new age spirituality just doesn't translate well to the screen. At least I have yet to see it done. In this case, the spiritual journey seems modeled on an Indiana Jones film, complete with exotic locales and similar maps denoting air travel, but lacking any intrigue, suspense, intelligible plot, intelligent historical background or charismatic heroes.
I volunteer to show documentary and spiritual films in my community, and I think I have quite a bit of patience and sympathy towards independent, low-budget, artistic and alternative films. This was all of those except artistic, but the result was painful to watch. The director, actors and John-Roger, the guru who wrote this film, were all present at this premiere and scheduled to speak afterwards. But after an hour of enduring their film, I decided I had little interest in sticking around to hear what they had to say.
There were probably some philosophical gems in here somewhere, but they were completely obliterated by incoherent, tortured plot, schizophrenic jump cuts (sometimes a dozen in a single monologue) and constant, gratuitous special effects, which were a mash-up of scenes from The Mummy and Lord of the Rings mixed with every clichéd new age symbolism you can think of, without any explanation of relevance. Within the first five minutes, the main character has met his spiritual master/father from another life and started having unexplained flashbacks on heroic previous lives in Atlantis, medieval castles, Petra, etc. The next hour adds little to that but changes of geographical location. Robert Easton plays the all-knowing Don Juan-esquire spiritual teacher, but with little originality or endearing qualities, and most of his attempts at cheekiness fall flat (especially his impersonation of John Wayne). Jsu Garcia, our hero, contributes the only decent acting, but the film offers little opportunity for him to develop his character or for us to sympathize with him.
Perhaps this isn't the movie-maker's fault...perhaps new age spirituality just doesn't translate well to the screen. At least I have yet to see it done. In this case, the spiritual journey seems modeled on an Indiana Jones film, complete with exotic locales and similar maps denoting air travel, but lacking any intrigue, suspense, intelligible plot, intelligent historical background or charismatic heroes.
I volunteer to show documentary and spiritual films in my community, and I think I have quite a bit of patience and sympathy towards independent, low-budget, artistic and alternative films. This was all of those except artistic, but the result was painful to watch. The director, actors and John-Roger, the guru who wrote this film, were all present at this premiere and scheduled to speak afterwards. But after an hour of enduring their film, I decided I had little interest in sticking around to hear what they had to say.