by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Paul Saltzman, David Lynch, Morgan Freeman (narrator)
Intro:
… a somewhat digressional nostalgia trip …
Namaste. When considering one of the greatest cultural forces in the Western world, it’s easy to think that all possible ground has been trodden. Teenaged fans screaming themselves into oblivion, myriads of covers, a library of music that stands taller than most (if not all) others; we know the Beatles. But with this documentary from Paul Saltzman, a glimpse is offered at an aspect of their legacy that, while not outright ignored, usually takes a back seat to everything else. And he makes a damn compelling argument for it to be kept in mind.
The film’s pace operates much like its genesis, with the filmmaker rediscovering old photos of himself and the Beatles at the ashram of the legendary Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The rest of the film drifts in and out of reminiscence of this focal point for the group’s spirituality and creativity. Through a combination of found footage, Saltzman filming himself returning to the ashram decades after the fact, and comic-book-style sequences courtesy of Tales from the Crypt artist Mike Vosburg, we are shown a journey that is as much internal as it is temporal.
While the artistic work that took place here stays within the figurative frame, up to and including debate about exactly how many songs the group came up with at the time, the overall tone is more egalitarian than deifying. As Saltzman recollects his interactions with the group, he emphasises their place not as music legends but as people no different than himself (“Everyone farts and is frightened of the dark” is a great piece of Zen wisdom delivered by the filmmaker).
Through that levelling of the playing field, the film’s true purpose presents itself. By bringing these pop culture deities down to the human level, presented through Saltzman’s permanently humanistic lens, it treats the Beatles the same way that the film alleges the Maharishi did: A Western gateway to Eastern practices, in particular Transcendental Meditation. In as much as George Harrison’s infatuation with the sitar led to some of the group’s trippiest sonic moments like ‘Love You To’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, the Beatles’ introduction to the practice led to a chance for inner peace. Something that Saltzman himself sought after and – through a combination of Grant Morrison-esque psychedelia and Orson Welles-esque professional bullshittery – eventually found.
Meeting The Beatles in India, with its name reminiscent of a beat poet’s aside, is a somewhat digressional nostalgia trip where the prospect of meeting pop idols in their prime is tempered by the director’s own journey of discovery and self-fulfilment. It’d make for an intriguing double feature with Ron Howard’s excellent tour documentary Eight Days a Week, balancing out the heady rush of fame with the eventual inward turn in search of real happiness, with Paul Saltzman’s voyage through the Hellfire and into the Pure Fire further grounding the film’s ultimate message of contentment in oneself. It’s an idea worth meditating on.
