😉😉😉😉😉
On: Netfilix (original series)
Length: 6 episodes (6 hours)
Documentaries present a variety of problems for their creators. The brothers Chapman and Maclain Way, who directed Wild Wild Country, took on the difficult task of recalling a specific piece of American history, in a specific place, that passed away as fast as its sensational details flooded American tabloids. The narrow impact belies the enormity of what occurred; thousands of people, millions of dollars, injustice, crime, and avarice (to name a few).
That reality, which I barely recalled (already in my 30s when it happened in the early 1980s), made this mini-series extraordinarily compelling.
The documentary chronicled the rise of a Buddhist splinter group that migrated from India to rural Oregon (USA) to begin the creation of what they believed to be the seed of a new utopian society, fully expecting it to have unlimited growth. To rural Oregon (the closest town, Antelope, with a population of 40), the County, the State of Oregon, and finally the Federal Government this religious group was viewed simply as a "Cult".
The reason for this definition was generated by its core spiritual leader, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who loosely defined the direction of the group and engendered devotion on a scale that Christian based bureaucracies found threatening.
The Way brothers presented their film using a compilation of large quantities of footage (which had been produced by the Rajneeshes), mounds of news footage, and extensive interviews with the players on all sides of the drama, still young enough to recount with clarity and insightfulness.
We are taken along the short evolution of this socialist society/religion in the US, with its appeal of embracing wealth and de-transgressing sex, as they built on a 10 square mile ranch, a city that showed the trappings of success. However, we are also led into their pragmatic dark side as they addressed the threats posed by the Christian communities around them and the US judicial system.
Ultimately, the demise of the Rajneeshes and the Bhagwan himself is a combination of misguided individuals from both the religion and the established American norms. It ends being both down heartening and deeply thought provoking.
A prominent interviewee was Swami Prem Niren (formally Philip Toelkes, a Wall Street lawyer who became a legal spokesperson for the group). Well spoken and articulate, he tearfully laments near the end that this short-lived society they created, before its decline, was the only time in his life he felt truly content, truly loved.
It made me consider that the Bhagwan, with all his eccentricities and excesses, was simply the nucleus of a web that held a large number of human beings attached to one another in just another attempt of mankind's quest to rid itself of fear.
My highest praise is to admit I could watch the whole thing again.
5 Winks No Blinks No Stinks
On: Netfilix (original series)
Length: 6 episodes (6 hours)
Documentaries present a variety of problems for their creators. The brothers Chapman and Maclain Way, who directed Wild Wild Country, took on the difficult task of recalling a specific piece of American history, in a specific place, that passed away as fast as its sensational details flooded American tabloids. The narrow impact belies the enormity of what occurred; thousands of people, millions of dollars, injustice, crime, and avarice (to name a few).
That reality, which I barely recalled (already in my 30s when it happened in the early 1980s), made this mini-series extraordinarily compelling.
The documentary chronicled the rise of a Buddhist splinter group that migrated from India to rural Oregon (USA) to begin the creation of what they believed to be the seed of a new utopian society, fully expecting it to have unlimited growth. To rural Oregon (the closest town, Antelope, with a population of 40), the County, the State of Oregon, and finally the Federal Government this religious group was viewed simply as a "Cult".
The reason for this definition was generated by its core spiritual leader, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who loosely defined the direction of the group and engendered devotion on a scale that Christian based bureaucracies found threatening.
The Way brothers presented their film using a compilation of large quantities of footage (which had been produced by the Rajneeshes), mounds of news footage, and extensive interviews with the players on all sides of the drama, still young enough to recount with clarity and insightfulness.
We are taken along the short evolution of this socialist society/religion in the US, with its appeal of embracing wealth and de-transgressing sex, as they built on a 10 square mile ranch, a city that showed the trappings of success. However, we are also led into their pragmatic dark side as they addressed the threats posed by the Christian communities around them and the US judicial system.
Ultimately, the demise of the Rajneeshes and the Bhagwan himself is a combination of misguided individuals from both the religion and the established American norms. It ends being both down heartening and deeply thought provoking.
A prominent interviewee was Swami Prem Niren (formally Philip Toelkes, a Wall Street lawyer who became a legal spokesperson for the group). Well spoken and articulate, he tearfully laments near the end that this short-lived society they created, before its decline, was the only time in his life he felt truly content, truly loved.
It made me consider that the Bhagwan, with all his eccentricities and excesses, was simply the nucleus of a web that held a large number of human beings attached to one another in just another attempt of mankind's quest to rid itself of fear.
My highest praise is to admit I could watch the whole thing again.
5 Winks No Blinks No Stinks
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