Faith Connections

Synopsis: A look at Kumbh Mela, a 55 day religious festival held every 12 years in Northern India to which literally hundreds of millions of Hindus make a pilgrimage.

Hindus seemingly attend Kumbh Mela much as we Westerners attend a trade show – the exhibitors to share shop talk, the punters to see the best of what the industry has to offer. A marked difference is that everyone at Kumbh Mela is also there for the “holy dip” in the Ganges (or Ganga as it is somewhat confusingly called here).  Punters there are in extraordinary numbers - close to a 100 million of them over the 55 days. You’d have to say that only in India could something as crazy as this take place.

Although there is neither a fictional narrative nor actors as such, rather than provide a straight factual documentary account of the festival, Nalin, whom audiences may know for his 2001 film Samsara, gives us his own up-close-and-personal perspective as a front-line festival attendee. The result is as beguiling a slice of India as you are ever likely to see from the comfort of your cinema seat.

To structure his film Palin creates a kind of narrative or dramatization around certain recurring characters that he discovers: Hatha Yogi Baba and his adopted son Baby Bajrangi; a precocious 10-year-old self-declared orphan, Kishan Tiwari; and a family looking for their lost child. Their stories unfold as around them pandemonium seems to be the order of the day. Various stripes of holy men perform for the crowds, Hatha Yogi Baba twists himself into pretzel-shaped configurations, a naked Sadhu works on his growler with a curling iron then uses it (the growler) to suspend a parcel of house bricks in the air. It gets him a hearty round of applause.  Elephants trumpet, people chant and bang on drums and an awful lot of dope is smoked.  It makes a nice, somewhat less awe-struck companion piece to the Indian component of the recent documentary A Life Exposed  - Robyn Beeche

Although it could have been shorter in length with much, if not all, of the story of the search for the missing child being omitted, Nalin’s film is a fascinating view of a very different way of life to our own -  vibrantly colourful, joyfully chaotic – and yet one not entirely disjunctive with it:  Smart Phones, credit cards and consumerism are clearly everyday realities. It's a combination that may well have you quietly questioning your own priorities and normative assumptions.

Faith Connections is a splendidly-crafted film, visually appealing and readily recommendable to armchair travellers and anyone interested in alternative lifestyles.

Want more about this film?

Want something different?