This was like someone's home movie of a trip to the Mela: what a group of Americans - open-minded but, a BA in religious studies from UCSB notwithstanding, uninformed - made of their trip to the Mela in exotic, spiritual India. Sure, the viewer meets some interesting people along the way, but no effort was made to explain the significance of the "sangam" (where three, not just two, rivers meet), what it means to the millions of pilgrims who go, what its many-thousand-year history was really like, etc. Other things are irritating, too, like a soundtrack only tangentially connected to what's going on, and various low-tech tricks designed to make the overwhelming effect of the mela more palpable which really only have the opposite effect. I'm not sure how one can capture the joy, chaos and sensory overload of an Indian festival (not to mention this mother of all festivals), but these effects are not the way. Oh, and the suggestion that our garrulous guide has taken a shine to the sweet bleach-blond American nurse (introduced by Real World-like interviews) is a distraction at best: go to the biggest religious festival in history and a sadhu will fall in love with YOU?
Review of Short Cut to Nirvana: Kumbh Mela
