My thoughts about movies and TV shows I've been watching

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Sunday, May 6, 2018

A good Netflix documentary about the rise and fall of a cult; did it really need to be 6 episodes, though?

The Netflix 6-part documentary Wild, Wild Country (by McClain and Chapman Way) recounts the history and brings us up to date on a weird event that apparently was a huge part of the news cycle in the early 1980s although, oddly, none of the 3 of us watching nor any of a few people I've discussed this series with has any memory of these events in the news at all (admittedly, these events got much bigger play on the NW, but the were part of the national news, as we see from many interpolated news clips). The story involves and devout group of followers of an Indian guru, Rajneesh, who, forced from their base in Poona, India, resettle in a remote part of Oregon. They went there to build a new community and to live life their own way - evidently, with a lot of frenetic dancing, open sexuality, and communal sharing of property - and one would think all could have been well for them. But instead of quietly going about their lives, they made a nuisance of themselves in the tiny nearby town of Antelope - having sex in plain view, taking over a park, crowding the streets, just generally being provocative and obnoxious, which led to community opposition, The central figure is a woman named Sheela who was the public face and voice for the group - the Rajneesh was spending 3 years in silence (at least publicly) - and Sheela relished the opportunity to be combative and belligerent, eventually to a criminal degree: poisoning people and event taking steps to kill a rival w/in the cult. The cult members were armed and dangerous and they had a huge amount of money - perhaps from sales and memberships world wide, though that's the documentary doesn't examine the source of the $. Sheela was either the iron fist in the velvet glove, carrying out Rajneesh's wishes and orders, or else she went off on her own ego trip, ruining the life the commune through her paranoia and aggression, for which she ultimately paid a price. In many ways it's fascinating to watch this story unfold - aided by a trove of contemporary film footage, supplemented by interviews with Sheela and others who lived through both sides of this struggle, and to wonder how we could have missed this story (which came about in the wake of Jonestown, which everyone remembers); however, most points were well made early on and at least by episode three I became annoyed at how slowly the filmmakers were revealing key information; they didn't need 6 hours to tell this story.

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