Enliven Up!

Twisting Pretzel Regime Needs a Boost.
 by Morgan P Salvo

Anyone who practices yoga or who is remotely curious about it should see this movie. Filmmaker and yoga enthusiast Kate Churchill had a goal for her documentary: find a novice yoga student and give him six months to transform physically and spiritually through practicing yoga. She picks Nick Rosen, a rock climber/journalist whose father is a corporate lawyer and mother is a shaman healer. She introduces Nick to many of the American “Baskin Robbins choices” of yoga, and then takes him to India to learn directly from the great masters.
Enlighten Up skims the surface of every encounter not to mention yoga in general. But the by-the-numbers run of the mill documentary has its moments. Beginning with testimonials from talking heads of internationally known yoga instructors and their explanations that there are exceptions and contradictions to all rules, it briefly cuts back and forth with mixed messages and innuendoes instead of information. It’s easy to tell from the first five minutes that Nick isn’t going to get it and yoga means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Even when EVERY single spiritual guru tells him that the brain is not the boss, don’t dwell on thoughts, keep practicing yoga and let it happen, Nick constantly resists and stonewalls what might “enlighten” him at every turn.
While the focus is on Nick the skeptic, the narration amateurishly switches between Nick and Kate, with both figures having dramatic moments. Thanks to Kate’s off camera remarks and input it’s obvious she is being affected by all that happens. But behind the scenes, she proves to be more distracting than beneficial.

The story of Nick’s journey becomes secondary to the travelogue interviews with the old masters in India and the yoga instructors, swamis and gurus. From B.K.S. Iyengar to Pattabhi Jois, the founder of Ashtanga Yoga, they all concur after a barrage of questions that there is no crash course and your whole life is practice. There are real pearls of wisdom for the stubborn disbelieving journalist who must rely on facts which makes sense only to him. “Yoga is mind control, not controlling the mind”, “The sum total of the habits of a man is his nature,” and one guru named Norman simply tells him, “Go f- yourself.” Hearing directly from these teachers and seeing footage of the lineage of popular U.S. yoga practices (including a form of the sun salutation sequence done with tossing prayer rocks) is pretty remarkable. Yogis in Bend will recognize two of their own in the interviews – David and Andrea Miliotis of Ashtanga Yoga Bend have a brief yet poignant appearance.
Despite the complexity of the subject matter, or perhaps because of it, there is quite a bit of humor injected into the film. The best is the pro wrestler in LA who changes the greeting “Namaste” to “T&A”, incorporating hot chicks with cleavage into his backyard lawn practice. The “laughter yoga” in India is funny yet weird. Personally I found the cartoon sound effects used to enunciate some moments in the film to be distracting and unnecessary.
As a documentary subject, Nick’s insistence on a world view vs. peace of mind is just not that interesting. His skepticism wears thin. He harps on the same viewpoints continuously, making it frustrating to watch. Too many scenes seemed like outtakes, while some interviews between Nick and Kate seemed staged and contrived. Nick suffers from the quick fix philosophy and both subject and filmmaker suffer from the obvious infatuation with each other—there were times I was convinced that they thought this thing up together. Despite seeking some kind of spiritual transformation on-camera, both Nick and Kate refuse to let us in on their real feelings, about themselves and each other (you have to wonder why Kate chose Nick as a subject in the first place). Their facade makes the emotion they do convey to appear phony – Nick does seem to have become a little more aware of himself and maybe a better person near the end of the film, but isn’t sure if he really cares and we in turn can’t. But then again I think it would be difficult to become enlightened or spiritually transformed in a short period of time, with a camera taping your every move.
It’s up to you to get something out of this movie – tune into the best parts and maybe you will come out enlightened. In the end yoga is a metaphor for life—all the swamis agree truth comes from within. I’m not sure if this movie will trigger any yoga converts but anyone into yoga should find it highly valuable.

Enlighten Up!
Directed by Kate Churchill
 2 stars for (the swami footage only)