There is a favourite quiz question which runs along the lines of "when did the 1960s end?" to which there are two basic answers. Most people will answer 1st January 1970, whilst some will be clever and answer 1st January 1971 - on the grounds that there was no year zero so all decades end on the first year of the next. For others there appears to be a third answer to the question, and that is "Hey, man, the '60s never ended, dig, it is forever 1967 like wow!" The largely white, middle class hippies who inhabit this dog of a movie would seem to belong to this group, as each and everyone of them have, to my mind, ignored the march of time and have stayed utterly rooted in their own groove which started during the first summer of love.
Now, that on its own is no reason to take so venomously against this film - a documentary about people caught in their own timewrap is no bad thing, but therein lies the rub. This is not a good film, it is dull, poorly edited and tells you nothing at all about the events at Molkom - why are people attracted to it, what exactly are they hoping to achieve whilst there, etc etc. The interviews are perfunctionary in the extreme - with the notable exception of the Australian guy who, at the start at least, was the only "proper" person there. But even he was a blindly obvious sell-out in the end - if that had been a feature film then the screenwriters would have been taken out and shoot for being so crass in having a character that starts off as a Doubting Thomas and ending up a convert to the cause (whatever cause that may have been!) Even with the happenings themselves there was no explanation - what was all that nonsense about pulling down power on the shores on the lake about, what actually happened in the sauna (oops, sorry, sweat lodge!) and why, yet again, was something so simple as fire walking shown as a deeply spiritual thing to do (white hot coals cause a thin film of sweat to form on the soles of the foot, thus protecting them from the heat, so anyone can firewalk with no special preparation - and, yes I have done it!). Also, did everyone actually end up shagging each other in the big tent or just cuddling - now that would have been worth watching! By the end I was beginning to question my own existence and just why was it I did not find the courage to simply walk on this dross! At the end there was, naturally, captions showing what each individual had done since leaving Molkom, but by the time they were being shown I was off down the street heading back to reality! I cared not a jot about any of them during the film (the class room show off (women with no saliva), the bully (big man who thought he was a king!), the quite mousy type (blonde Swedish girl who had everyone bowing down to her - like wow man!) the weird guy, and, of course, the Australian! Next time I see advertised a film about modern day hippies I will cross the street and let them get on with their thing, man. I know they are doing no harm, but I do not want to waste any more of my hard-earned dosh watching them do no harm.
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