When filmmaker Kate Churchill, herself a practicing yoga enthusiast, invites journalist and yoga virgin Nick Rosen to sample various forms of the discipline for six months to see if it transforms his life, she creates an interesting dual viewpoint and a fascinating tug of war for control of her film, 'Enlighten Up!' 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. Opening April 1 at Gotham's IFC Center, this simultaneously tongue in cheek and reverential docu will entertain the unenlightened without alienating the faithful.
Pic conducts a whirlwind tour of a dizzying array of practices that all call themselves forms of yoga, presided over by a host of practitioners ranging from benevolent sages to burning eyed ascetics, with assorted lecherous ex wrestlers, New Age mystics and glorified aerobics teachers thrown in for good measure. Rosen, as narrator, dictates the pic's meaning, but as he fails to manifest any appreciable onset of spirituality, Churchill allows her angry disappointment to become a dramatic factor, her whispered asides to attempting to steer Rosen's pragmatic queries down more metaphysical paths.
By RONNIE SCHEIB
THE LATEST YOGA NEWS, FROM IT IS YOGA
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