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It’s interesting to see what mainstream media outlets have to say about the new yoga documentary Enlighten Up!  The New York Times and Variety have already put in their two cents (see our earlier post), but the Los Angeles Times just weighed in with an intriguing review in their Calendar section:

In a knot over yoga’s benefits

The fact that you don’t need to know much about yoga to appreciate director Kate Churchill’s documentary “Enlighten Up!” speaks to both the film’s strength and weakness. Although this look at journalist Nick Rosen’s experimental immersion into the various disciplines of yoga is an entertaining chronicle, Churchill doesn’t provide the kind of nuts-and-bolts take-away on the popular practice that would turn the movie into something richer than what’s essentially a high-minded reality TV turn.

Churchill, a longtime yoga devotee, turned her cameras on yoga newbie Rosen hoping to prove the practice’s transformative powers. The bright, slightly rakish Rosen makes for an appealing subject as well as a credible guinea pig; the 29-year-old is open-minded enough to commit to Churchill’s six-month, globe-hopping endurance test but objective enough to channel any viewer skepticism about yoga’s often ambiguous effects.

Rosen’s journey, which exposes him to an intriguing array of yogis, teachers and mystics from across the U.S. and India, nicely juxtaposes yoga’s Western emphasis on physicality with the East’s more spiritual, ascetic bent. Unfortunately, when Rosen, despite best efforts, can’t get past a kind of yoga neutrality, Churchill’s initially jaunty approach turns prickly, making one wonder just how “enlightened” the filmmaker truly is.

Click here to see the review in its original location in the LA Times. (Scroll down a bit to find it – it’s toward the bottom of the page.)  And stay tuned for an official review from Drishti, which will appear here on our blog in the very near future…