2/4
Starring Kate Churchill ‘amp; Nick Rosen
Directed by Kate Churchill
Eighteen million Americans practice a Baskin-Robbins variety of yoga,’ director Kate Churchill said [in an interview]. ‘It’s better than sex.’
To prove her point, the seven-year practitioner enlists urbane New Yorker Nick Rosen ‘mdash; offspring of a lawyer and a shamanic healer ‘mdash; to undergo a social experiment that includes trotting the globe in search of yoga’s true meaning.
Of course, the multibillion-dollar industry is also one that prides itself on doing exactly as what film’s title flagrantly suggests: achieving enlightenment.
The mission takes Churchill and Rosen from isolated forest in Hawaii to the cow-infested roadside offices of master yogis in India. But perhaps their most poignant visit is with ex-pro-wrestler-turned-master-yogi Diamond Dallas Page, who captures America’s insatiable thirst for cultural fusion gone wrong.
‘Yoga is about T and A,’ roars Page as he performs a couple asanas on his prim lawn in West Hollywood, two scantily clad blondes contorting their bodies in the background.
Unfortunately, Churchill’s brash and incorrigible commitment to describing yoga as nothing more than a high-brow workout ‘mdash; berating a laid-back Rosen in multiple interviews for not treating yoga as a tool of ‘transformation’ ‘mdash; overwhelms what little objectivity the film rides on.
As a result, ‘Up!’ becomes less about yoga as an art form and more about the rather dysfunctional and hilarious relationship between Churchill and her subject. Eventually, Churchill’s curiosity sinks to disenchantment, leaving Rosen with the troublesome burden of re-energizing an otherwise banal and cursory study of a two-millennia-old spiritual practice.
‘Up!’ does do a good job of detouring from the Ken Burns factoid-based documentary ‘mdash; albeit largely by substituting fact with ‘shy;’shy;’shy;’shy;’shy;’shy;’shy;’shy;drama. And creviced between clips of Rosen’s emotional breakdowns and Churchill’s frustration are pockets of wisdom in interviews with world-renowned gurus.
The bubble-gum soundtrack and pastel palette of the film might accentuate Churchill’s spunk more than advance the storyline, but it’s at least a reminder to audiences that ‘Up!’ is more a soccer-mom fix than a source of spiritual guidance.