'Awake: The Life of Yogananda': Fascinating story of a yogi in America
Long before yoga became known in the West for its muscle-honing, gravity-defying postures and see-through stretch pants, it was a very different practice in the West.
Long before yoga became known in the West for its muscle-honing, gravity-defying postures and see-through stretch pants, it was a very different practice in the West.
In the 1920s, a swami from India, Paramahansa Yogananda, traveled around the United States teaching the benefits of meditation and urging Americans to tap into their inner divinity. As the dreamy, entrancing, and occasionally overstuffed documentary Awake: The Life of Yogananda shows, yoga took hold back then just as it has now. Thousands flocked to Yogananda's lectures and visited his Los Angeles-based ashram on Mount Washington. Calvin Coolidge invited him to the White House.
Yogananda's influence remains very much alive more than 60 years after his death. That legacy includes a number of devotees interviewed during the movie, from Deepak Chopra to Russell Simmons (mysteriously not identified), a Jesuit priest, and a couple of scientists.
There's archival footage of George Harrison (who died in 2001) proclaiming the brilliance of Yogananda's book Autobiography of a Yogi and a clip of Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff talking about how attendees at Steve Jobs' memorial service received a copy. As a Harvard-based professor of medicine and physics explains, Yogananda's "writings are very appealing to a scientific appetite."
An impressive array of archival footage of Yogananda is woven through the interviews. The man was fleshy and androgynous, with long, wavy hair and dark, piercing eyes, which even through grainy footage seem to penetrate a viewer's deepest layers. Harrison says that when Ravi Shankar handed him a copy of Autobiography with the swami's photo on the cover, Yogananda "zapped" him with those eyes.
The documentary also sprinkles in surreal reenactments of Yogananda's dreams and visions, and while such material can be hard to pull off, directors Paola di Florio and Lisa Leeman are masters of atmospherics. Their slow-motion images coupled with sitar music send the viewer into an appropriately trancelike state.
That meditative vibe tends to get broken up by a narrative approach that's too all-encompassing. There's a sense that we're racing through Yogananda's life and a slew of historical events - the start of World War II, India's independence movement - without delving into the moments that were most meaningful.
Nevertheless, Yogananda's story is a fascinating one. And although the documentary will likely attract a discrete group, it has the potential for broader appeal. For evidence, look no further than an old photo of oil tycoon James Lynn, sitting on the ground, meditating alongside Yogananda in a double-breasted suit.
Awake: The Life of Yogananda **1/2 (out of four stars)
Directed by Paola di Florio and Lisa Leeman. With George Harrison, Anupam Kher, Russell Simmons. Distributed by Counterpoint Films.
Running time: 1 hour, 27 mins.
Parent's guide: PG (adult themes, some violent images, brief smoking).
Playing at: Ritz at the Bourse.
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