First and foremost, this is a film for the already initiated. For everybody else? Well, it’s complicated.
There’s nothing quite like hearing Hare Krishna, a greeting, echo throughout a crowded theater. If this tells you anything about the new film, Hare Krishna: The Mantra, the Movement, and the Swami Who Started It All, from the husband-wife duo John and Jean Griesser and co-director Lauren Ross, it should be that it knows exactly who it’s audience is. By the end of the film, as we hear the titular mantra chanted in a globe spanning montage, most of the audience began chanting along.
Hare Krishna feels like their movie, and it’s hard to blame anybody who is happy to celebrate a film dedicated to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, colloquially known as the Hare Krishna. Their representation on screen has tended to be in service of a punchline to a joke. Their distinct robes and hair cuts made them a perfect foil for 70’s and 80’s comedies. The cynicism of time was totally at odds with their message of peace (although, ironically, the film makes clear the distinctive aesthetic was adopted to attract attention and separate practitioners from other hippie movements).
Comprised primarily of first hand accounts from people who met Srila Prabhupada, the 70 year old Indian man who set up shop in Matchless Gifts at 26nd 2nd Avenue in the late 60’s and proceeded to induct people into the, there is only a modest attempt at objectivity. Playing like hagiography, even the academic subjects Griesser features openly fawn over the late leader. This is not a bad thing. At least not necessarily. At the very least, Griesser manages to provide just enough new information that anybody who watches Hare Krishna will surely walk away having learned something.
Indeed, as the Griesser’s describe it, Prabhupada’s tale is almost the ur-American story. Prabhupada washes up on American shores penniless, driven, the film describes, by a singular drive to spread the word of the ancient texts such as the Bhagavad Gita. And yet why this 70 year old man would elect to finally leave his home and venture to New York, without food or money or warm clothes, is largely glossed over. Lip service is given to this foundational moment, and yet Griesser’s account remains unsatisfactory.
The same can be said of the films portrait of 60’s and 70’s youth movements. These were some of America’s most tumultuous years. The Hippie movement was in full swing, the Village and Haight-Ashbury were booming, the Beatles were on top of the world. The youth who would be so central to the Hare Krishna’s ultimate success are given plenty of shots that glamorize this moment in history, and yet the causes of that moment are left obscure. There are real, concrete, material reasons why Americans young were turning away from traditional lifestyles and embracing yoga and spiritual mantras (even if, for as much time as the film spends on Prabhupada, his actual teachings are left vague). And yet to the film’s detriment, the Griesser’s omit this crucial context.
This proves to be the films biggest problem. Although Prabhupada’s mission from India to the US is described, it also feels weirdly disconnected from the rest of the story. Who was he before he came? What drew people to him, other than his cooking and warm smile? What accounts for the continued success of the movement, and how does it fit in with the rest of the world? What exactly are they trying to accomplish?
Some of this we hear through Prabhupada’s platitudes. “I am not the body,” he tells his followers to repeat. “Know yourself,” he urges, predated the self-care movements that were to come. These people, Hare Krishna! insists, were seeking an alternative. To what? Well, that’s quite vague.
What they do spend plenty of time on is the number of celebrities who came to the movement. Allen Ginsberg receives ample screen time, as does George Harrison. We get Beatles footage, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane— on the one hand, these are all people who are instrumental in the story how the Hare Krishna spread across the globe. On the other, their story obfuscates some of the more problematic aspects of the movement. It’s investigation by anti-cult task forces is treated as a major coup for the Hare Krishna in the film, and yet there have been legitimate causes of concern. Meanwhile Prabhupada’s own thoughts on race realism, anti-semitism, and Hitler are elided completely.
This feeling of incompleteness extends to the films actual structure as well. On the formal level, there’s much left to be desired. Although Griesser shot much of the footage, and combined it with existing archival footage, often the only voice heard is Prabhupada’s own. When voice overs do occur, it’s usually impossible to tell who is speaking. There are no title cards, or formal narration to speak of. Consequently the film feels loose in a way that a documentary, whose purpose, we assume, is to inform the uninitiated, simply cannot afford. Hare Krishna lacks a central narrative momentum. This is a dramatic story, a rags to riches, man against the world, one voice forming an entire movement and yet it somehow ends up lacking tangible stakes. It’s narrative plays out a series of “and thens,” which come as a cost of its distinct lack of context.
Ultimately Hare Krishna is not a bad movie. It’s not even uninformative. And yet given this rich history, one cannot help but feel disappointed they simply don’t do more. For Hare Krishna who have long to seen their story on told on the big screen, there’s plenty to love. But for the rest of us? Well, guess it’s time to start reading.
It is now playing in theaters in NY and opening this Friday in LA at the Laemmle’s Monica Film Center in Santa Monica, CA.
