Takes itself way too seriously

Just perfect...

How sad is this?

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Having people close in my life who don't fully understand what yoga is about (and are a little afraid to get involved in the culture) this movie is refreshingly neutral showing ALL sides of the physical, mental and emotions people may go through opening up to something new. It demystifies the practice and lowers the expectations of what people perceive as 'yoga can do no wrong' and ends the movie on the point: It's all about the perception of the individual human being. Just like the feedback it's received, it's a full circle. Watch with an open heart and just accept that people look at not only yoga, but everything with different opinions.

The style of the documentary reminds me of Super Size Me, but this comes at it with a more personal angle and the documentarian(?) clearly is not an independent third party, but she is very open about her appreciation for yoga and her initial wish to convert others.From her mission to reality is where the film takes us and the journey is very insightful, even if it relies too much on the personal stories of others as opposed to providing some more purely factual background. It's through those personal meetings and interviews that you grasp the present-day reality of yoga as opposed to a vague abstract.Based on how deeply affected the few IMDb reviewers (so far) were by this film, I'm starting to think I should raise my rank (currently 7). This film provides a very solid foundation in yoga with little if any bias and does so in a way that keeps your interest, and what more can you really ask for from a documentary on anything?

Director Kate Churchill ends up with a non-story in her feature Enlighten Up! when her subject fails to experience the changes she had been expecting. Churchill might have taken Rosen directly to the impressive yoga potentates B.K.S. Iyengar in India, the reclusive Norman Allen in Hawaii (his advice to ease Rosen's way to spiritual ease is "F--k yourself"), and Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois, a veritable lion of a guru whose ashtanga yoga method is practiced all over the world.The journalist's encounters – too brief, too arranged – with these men provide a glimpse of the possibility of true revelation. Sadly, Churchill gets miffed with Rosen's inability to receive yoga wisdom.And, apparently in the interests of providing the conflict element demanded in modern storytelling, the movie gets lost for a while as their relationship deteriorates.So, the director doesn't get the story she wanted and the viewer gets only a fleeting taste of several good yarns that she allowed to slip through her fingers.

I was looking forward to seeing Enlighten Up! The buzz has been palpable and WOW a film about yoga which might enter the mainstream, inform the zeitgeist, and acknowledge all of the hard work that yoga teachers in places like New York and the West Coast have been doing to promote yoga in the U.S. But then I saw an advance copy of Enlighten Up! and although its trailers, advertising and press releases introduce an interesting premise, it's sad and unfortunate how badly handled, biased and back handed the film turns out to be.Don't get me wrong, I'm generally seduced by films that are provocative and make me think about the world differently. The production values are polished and the locations are really great and occasionally beautiful in a colonizer's view of the world. But as I was watching I couldn't help but think (in addition to "couldn't I be spending my time in a yoga class instead of watching this?") that Kate Churchill, the director, really has an axe to grind.We are led to believe that she has the key, the understanding of how to attain enlightenment, and she lays out the red herring of a thesis: take someone, preferably some cute, clueless-seeming 20-something guy and see what he does in the habitrail of this myopic film. Running at just under an hour and a half, coincidentally (or not?) about the length of a yoga class including savasana (aka final relaxation), Enlighten Up! introduces Nick Rosen as that clueless guy who "obviously" needs enlightenment.The montage of yoga teachers introduced in the beginning is highly edited. It's obvious that sentences are misquoted, spliced and taken out of context to support the thrust of Ms. Churchill's supposed thesis. Contemporary Western yoga teachers are illustrated as mostly capitalists, an insidious assertion since it is their students who Ms. Churchill wants to exploit. Most of these yoga teachers are presented as fodder for laughter, as are many of their students, and the way it's done is nothing short of cringe-inducing.Ms. Churchill essentially exploits all of these yoga teachers and teachings in the same way that she suggests teachers exploit un-enlightened students and presents herself as an ultimate expert. Nick's journey towards enlightenment is clearly secondary while Ms. Churchill self-indulgently chugs the film along, ending with the film maker and her artifice, illustrated in her unfortunate ending yoga pose. She talks a good talk, but she doesn't walk the walk or even headstand the headstand like when she falls out of a headstand "super-fakey like." It is clear she has aspirations of being Michael Moore via Roger and Me or Errol Morris in his acute investigations of subject matter but Ms. Churchill opts instead for cheap and easy á la "just another reality TV show," a ruse with all the real parts edited and all remaining pretense subjugated, exploited and marketed. There are no real "a-ha" moments outside of realizing you've been duped into watching an old episode of Amazing Race/Survivor/I Love New York/Project Runway with a bit of Single White Female and Fatal Attraction spliced in.It's interesting how Whole Foods, the mainstream, high-end, food conglomerate, is a sponsor of the film, while those in film presented as enlightened live so simply and with little. Like any vacationer who travels to an exotic land, Kate Churchill wants the REAL experience under her auspices and still comes back to the comfort of her own enlightened lifestyle. Many of the teachers she initially tries to exploit give money in support of not-for-profit organizations in the US and elsewhere, have free and inexpensive yoga classes, work in partnership with schools, and so on. One wonders if any money Ms. Churchill generates from this film will go anywhere except into her own pockets? One eventually wonders who the real audience for the film really is: yoga practitioners, non-yoga practitioners, people on the fence about it, people who loathe it? It probably doe$n't even matter to her.It really is unfortunate that the film couldn't have been a much better one. Ms. Churchill must have squandered some serious funding. One wishes the film was a more inclusive one, one where community and conversation could arise, one that supports the diversity of yoga communities; engendering "yoga" aka union or relationship. Instead Ms. Churchill illustrates the "one" and only way to access enlightenment, her way, not Nick's, not yours, not mine; along the way she demeans others' hard work, and others' own paths to enlightenment.If you're curious about enlightenment, consider studying with nearly any of the great yoga teachers she tries to exploit, all of whom have lived longer, practiced longer and have a longer view than Kate Churchill's.As a reviewer it would be unprofessional to call Kate Churchill a myopic control freak whose best intentions are undermined by her own self indulgence, desire for attention and motivation to make a quick buck. But as a yoga practitioner (moviegoer, citizen of the earth, etc) how could I not? Any truly unbiased documentary film maker should leave themself out of the film, without on-screen breakdowns by the director/narrator/producer (that means you Ms. Churchill), with no on-screen antagonizing of their subjects (also you Ms. Churchill) and for god's and goddess' sake if your subject wants to go on a date with someone he's met, he can, and your meddling to prevent his freedom or dictating how to do that says more about you than about him.