A modest, sublime look at the search for truth
Enlighten Up! (2009)
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:19
Rotten:15
Average Rating:6/10
Consensus: Enlighten Up! is a funny, warmhearted documentary that's uneven in spots, but thought-provoking nonetheless.
Runtime: 82 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
Synopsis:
Kate Churchill is a filmmaker and a dedicated yoga practitioner who insists that yoga can transform anyone. She decides to prove it. Her plan: select a subject, immerse him in yoga and follow him...
Kate Churchill is a filmmaker and a dedicated yoga practitioner who insists that yoga can transform anyone. She decides to prove it. Her plan: select a subject, immerse him in yoga and follow him until he finds a yoga practice that transforms him. Her subject: Nick Rosen a skeptical, 29 year-old journalist living in New York City.
Intrigued by the opportunity to peek behind the curtain of a 5.7 billion dollar “spiritual” industry, Nick signs on to investigate yoga for 6 months. Before he can say OM, he finds himself twisted up like a pretzel, surrounded by celebrity yogis, true believers, kooks, entrepreneurs and a gentle teacher from Brazil who leads his class with his feet behind his head.
The more Nick investigates yoga the more contradictions he discovers, leading him to question whether yoga is anything more than a workout. As Nick searches for concrete facts and discards the lofty spiritual theories of his yoga teachers, he strays further from Kate’s original plan. The two find themselves lost in Northern India, embroiled in a struggle between Kate’s expectations and Nick’s overt rejection of “spirituality.”
They circle the globe talking to mystics, gurus, mad men and saints searching for the true meaning of yoga. Ultimately, both Nick and Kate end up in places they never could have imagined. They don’t find the answers to their questions, they find much more.
--© Official Site
Starring: Nick Rosen
Starring: Nick Rosen
Director: Kate Churchill
Director: Kate Churchill
Story: Khari Streeter, Jonathon Hexner, Kate Churchill
Producer: Kate Churchill
Composer: Krishna Venkatesh
Studio: Balcony Releasing
Reviews for Enlighten Up!
An alternatively funny and revealing flick which dares to knock some seemingly sacrosanct gurus off their lofty pedestals.
Enlighten Up! is at least occasionally skeptical of the premise that true things might be articulated and disseminated.
An April Fool's Day release may be more appropriate than the audience expected in this random collection of interviews and experiences on the heart and soul of yoga.
Enlighten Up! tries to answer yoga's burning question - what came first, downward facing dog or spiritual dogma?
Moves toward an inconclusive destination while offering a few glimpses of bliss along the way.
A thought-provoking documentary that provides an up-close and personal look at the quest for spiritual meaning in yoga.
Has sporadically provocative and amusing moments, but remains poorly synthesized, somewhat unfocused and leaves you feeling underwhelmed and hungry for more enlightenment about yoga and spirituality.
The film doesn’t force an artificial resolution on their battle of wills, which may be the most enlightened thing about it.
Entertaining but superficial tour %u2014it never substantively differentiates the myriad of yoga options breezily presented.
Its director winds up focusing on the least interesting/most predictable tension of them all, that which arises between herself and her handpicked, inflexible star.
Enlighten Up! explores its subject with a light touch and welcome sense of humor.
Well-crafted pic traverses the globe, interviewing a who's-who of gurus and investigating a wide range of regimens -- with Rosen as both questioner and body-contorting guinea pig.
A fast-moving, often humorous documentary about a young man's search for his "higher self" through yoga.
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