This nonfiction film's central conceit isn't really a spoiler, so I'll let fly with it: The filmmaker, having grown up the child of first generation Indian immigrants found himself pulling away from the Hindu religion/traditions of his family just at the moment in American culture when yoga and Indian gurus were all the rage with everyone else. He'd initially set out to document the phenomena in a more conventional way but, feeling disillusioned by the emptiness of so many of the so-called gurus he encountered, he decided to fabricate a guru from scratch (the titular Kumaré, played with perfection by the filmmaker himself) to expose the hollowness of these self-proclaimed spiritual leaders/teachers.
So I went into this film expecting a kind of smarter more agenda-driven Sacha Baron Cohen type of prank. And don't get me wrong, it delivers those pleasures. But the process of becoming Kumaré and being the guru for the followers he meets over time changes Gandhi's intentions and shifts the film into deeper and more dangerous places.
The direction of the film is first-rate, no surprise given the director's wide prior experience doing commericals and other film/TV work for hire. The film is extremely well crafted and professional without feeling overly slick. There's an awful lot of complex information and complicated storytelling accomplished with precision and economy, particularly in the editing.
Anyone with interest in pranks, cults, the New Age, obedience to authority and the sociology and psychology of religious experience should check this out.
Some specifics follow beneath the spoiler tag:
Spoiler
Like Compliance, another smaller film from last year finally reaching a wider audience on video, Kumaré would be right at home on a Social Psych syllabus for skillfully illustrating the many ways in which people give themselves and their will over to a situation by too easily deferring to someone who seems like an authority. Though Gandhi is quite convincing and often genuinely helpful in his role as guru, his film shows that what matters most isn't the individual players so much as it is the roles they're cast into (guru vs. disciples) and the playbook they believe they're acting out (the transmission of spiritual knowledge from the seer to the seekers.)
Kumaré's teachings begin with some real yoga moves (and a few believable yet inauthentic ones tucked into the routine). But they also proceed into the practice of meaningless (yet credibly designed) New Age rituals like chanting, meditating on "blue light" that is said to flow between them, staring into each others' eyes.
The first surprise comes when, like any especially good or committed teacher/mentor/parent/therapist, Kumaré listens to his followers' life problems, genuinely appears to care, and reflects back to them the solutions they're already aware of and perhaps simply unable to commit to.
Unlike many a real-life cult leader/guru, Gandhi/Kumaré doesn't even attempt to exploit his followers' finances or their bodies. He doesn't require blind devotion, demand anyone cut their ties with previous practices, beliefs, friends, family or employment. So in this regard, as a Social Psychology experiment, it's rather tame. Nothing like the outrageous things Milgram, Zimbardo or even Sacha Baron Cohen have gotten people to do with their make-believe. And I'd say it also shows the rather admirable ethical tightrope Gandhi walks with the whole project.
There are a few digressions -- to a creepy New Age U.F.O. cult's compound, an inept past-life psychic, an "acoustic theologian" and a pathetic suburban self-help group run by a bad salesman and based on the so-called "Laws of Attraction." -- into some of the kinds of experiences that inspired Gandhi to make the film. But they end up serving mostly to contrast with his authentic concern for his own followers and reasonably sound life advice.
The trickiest part of it for me is the content of Kumaré 's teaching -- essentially that you don't need anyone else to be your guru, that you already have the answers to your problems inside yourself *-- which seems like it was first conceived by Gandhi with the idea of doing the least harm and providing the most honesty (within the limits of the put-on), but turns out to have an authentically compelling and useful truth to it that, in the end, works for some of the guru's most troubled followers in spite of his full confession of the fraud. And from a certain perspective the ones who still abide by Kumaré's teaching and appreciate the life lesson(s) perhaps both in spite of and because of their new context strike me as the most truly enlightened. How this all plays in the final revelation of Kumaré's true identity is a nail-biter of a scene that the entire film is building toward.
*(At one point near the end of the film, the proprietor of a New Age bookstore compares Kumaré's message to a famous Zen koan: "If you meet your Buddha on the road, kill him." -- meaning, in part at least, that there is no one great or obvious teacher, no single way outside your own journey to enlightenment. Though perhaps less solipsistic than Vikram Gandhi's interpretation of Kumaré's teaching, I'd say this goes to show how the roots of this idea runs deep throughout the world's wisdom traditions. Which is to say also that questioning/exposing false teachers and the undue adoration of their disciples has long been a part of serious spiritual development in many Eastern religions.)
Kumaré's teachings begin with some real yoga moves (and a few believable yet inauthentic ones tucked into the routine). But they also proceed into the practice of meaningless (yet credibly designed) New Age rituals like chanting, meditating on "blue light" that is said to flow between them, staring into each others' eyes.
The first surprise comes when, like any especially good or committed teacher/mentor/parent/therapist, Kumaré listens to his followers' life problems, genuinely appears to care, and reflects back to them the solutions they're already aware of and perhaps simply unable to commit to.
Unlike many a real-life cult leader/guru, Gandhi/Kumaré doesn't even attempt to exploit his followers' finances or their bodies. He doesn't require blind devotion, demand anyone cut their ties with previous practices, beliefs, friends, family or employment. So in this regard, as a Social Psychology experiment, it's rather tame. Nothing like the outrageous things Milgram, Zimbardo or even Sacha Baron Cohen have gotten people to do with their make-believe. And I'd say it also shows the rather admirable ethical tightrope Gandhi walks with the whole project.
There are a few digressions -- to a creepy New Age U.F.O. cult's compound, an inept past-life psychic, an "acoustic theologian" and a pathetic suburban self-help group run by a bad salesman and based on the so-called "Laws of Attraction." -- into some of the kinds of experiences that inspired Gandhi to make the film. But they end up serving mostly to contrast with his authentic concern for his own followers and reasonably sound life advice.
The trickiest part of it for me is the content of Kumaré 's teaching -- essentially that you don't need anyone else to be your guru, that you already have the answers to your problems inside yourself *-- which seems like it was first conceived by Gandhi with the idea of doing the least harm and providing the most honesty (within the limits of the put-on), but turns out to have an authentically compelling and useful truth to it that, in the end, works for some of the guru's most troubled followers in spite of his full confession of the fraud. And from a certain perspective the ones who still abide by Kumaré's teaching and appreciate the life lesson(s) perhaps both in spite of and because of their new context strike me as the most truly enlightened. How this all plays in the final revelation of Kumaré's true identity is a nail-biter of a scene that the entire film is building toward.
*(At one point near the end of the film, the proprietor of a New Age bookstore compares Kumaré's message to a famous Zen koan: "If you meet your Buddha on the road, kill him." -- meaning, in part at least, that there is no one great or obvious teacher, no single way outside your own journey to enlightenment. Though perhaps less solipsistic than Vikram Gandhi's interpretation of Kumaré's teaching, I'd say this goes to show how the roots of this idea runs deep throughout the world's wisdom traditions. Which is to say also that questioning/exposing false teachers and the undue adoration of their disciples has long been a part of serious spiritual development in many Eastern religions.)