Euphoric Up an Enlightening Endeavor
Enlighten Up! is a documentary about yoga. On the surface things don’t get much more complicated than that. Beneath them, however, is a whole different story, and it’s that one which ends up making this engaging feature hugely worthwhile.
Nick Rosen goes topsy-turvy in Balcony Releasing's Enlighten Up!
Filmmaker Kate Churchill, herself a yoga enthusiast, decides to test the theory that this ancient exercise of contortion and balance can transform anyone for the better. She enlists the aid of skeptical freelance journalist Nick Rose, and over the next six months she tracks him as he goes from guru to guru in search guidance and answers.
Watching Nick is, at times, extremely inspirational. I like that he taps so honestly into the flurry of emotions and feelings he experiences throughout this period, that his bares his soul almost without hesitation. There are times where his irritation towards yoga became my own, others where his euphoria swept me up inside its warm embrace. There is a palpable connection between him and the audience, Churchill mostly letting Nick’s own reactions and words speak plainly for themselves.
The whole thing plays a bit like a travelogue. The journalist jets all over the place, like from New York to Los Angeles or from Hawaii to India, in search of answers he’s not sure he wants but that he knows the director wants him to ask. Sometimes he can’t help but shake his head to the absurdity of it all, others he finds himself almost moved to tears at visceral power of what it is he is being told.
In all honesty, I’m not going to say this is the best documentary I’ve seen this year. It’s fairly straightforward and doesn’t exactly ask questions I think are all that interesting most of the time. But I do like the fact Churchill allows herself to become part of the project, her journey maybe even more important than that of her subject. I also think the film ends beautifully, the last third in particular a fascinating foray into the heart of India that made me feel a blissful tranquility I wasn’t remotely expecting.
Did I feel the need to run out and sign up for yoga classes? No, I can’t say I did. After it was over did I look at myself and my own life in the mirror and ask myself some of the ethereal and emotional questions the last guru in India so beguilingly put forth? Most definitely, the power of his words sticking with me weeks after the rest of the film had already begun to fade from memory. For that reason I think Enlighten Up! is worth stretching your horizons for to seek out, the since of calm euphoria I felt after it was over one I can’t help but think will be downright universal.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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