The Worst Film Ever

That was an excellent one.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Or was it medicate? Seriously though: With a lot of faux documentaries making their rounds, I had to check if they were making stuff up here. Because it wasn't really that entertaining as "Exit through the Gift shop" to name one of the best in recent history. But no the sect/cult/mediation group depicted in this actually really exists. And you may shocked by this, but they want your money.I know right? But they offer you so much. Like enlightenment and probably immortality and you know other stuff you crave. Obvious comparisons to Scientology are at hand and there has been a documentary or two about them too. And quite a few good ones, I just recently watched one that really got into the jist of it. This one right here is not a bad effort, but it does feel like a school play. There's a moment where the girlfriend (or not) of the director/star of the movie says "they should not treat you like a film student". Which sounds like a valid point overall and is expressing frustration. Accidentally though it is also revealing. Because if you want to be treated a certain way, you also have to behave a certain way. Or have the charisma to carry out that, let's call it swagger.Something our director here does not have in abundance. I'm not trying to be mean here by the way, just keeping it real. This documentary is bizarre to put it mildly and also fascinating to a degree. When it comes to its theme. Because mediation itself is a good thing. And that's one of the things the movie does seem to get right in the end ... pun intended

Summary of the movie: People seek enlightenment, but follow deceitful gurus that care only about taking ones' money. The movements gurus use girls for sex and use men for their money then discard them, but ironically, still millions of dollars donated to him and people followed him. Also, one can learn that what a child believe in will stay with him/her to the end of his/her life. So individuals need to be careful about what their children learn. The main question one would think after the movie is: why people like to follow fake gurus blindly and why the followers of the right movements do not effectively attract seeking people?

A young director, who adores David Lynch, wants to learn transcendental meditation. He approaches TM with an unbiased naivety which is slightly shocking. But soon he detects more and more discrepancies in the TM organisation. The TM guys, including Mr Lynch, who at first were very cooperative, now want him to stop filming. When Sieveking begins to meet TM renegades, the organisation gets outright hostile. Lynch threatens to sue him. The film, however, stays pure record-keeping of events. And Sieveking turns to the source. He flies to India to visit the monastery where Marashiri learned his meditation. The successor of Marashiri's teacher says that Marashiri was a crook who had no right to teach meditation and sends Sieveking to the spring of the Ganges for enlightenment. Again, Sieveking does not challenge the words of the guru. The film takes the viewer on a journey. It's Sieveking's journey. Sieveking has not tried to edit the earlier material in the light of his later experiences. And exactly that is what makes this documentary so lively.

This documentary begins without much excitement: OK, so the recent film-school graduate admires the famous director David Lynch (his girlfriend accuses him of being obsessed) and since David Lynch likes and recommends transcendental meditation, the young man (the director) also gives TM a try. Just when I was asking myself why the director wasn't looking at TM with a more critical eye, things got very interesting. I don't want to give too much away, but eventually both David Lynch and the TM organization threaten to sue the young film-maker. And the whole thing got started because he was nuts about Lynch! There is also a sub-plot about his (the young director's) personal life which helps the viewer connect with the main character. This film is well worth viewing, especially for those who sometimes think about investigating more thoughtful, alternative approaches to life.