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Planet Yoga

PLANET YOGA (Carlos Ferrand). 87 minutes. Opens Friday (May 4). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: N


If you want to know more about yoga, enroll in a class and read a few Wikipedia entries. While the doc Planet Yoga certainly offers a thorough breakdown of the ancient discipline, the absence of any perspective will also bore you into a state of tranquility.

Director/narrator Carlos Ferrand opens his film with a promise to explore whether yoga is a fad, a sect or something more, yet the practice is never questioned.

He interviews active yoga instructors, swamis and other folks who swear by its profound effect on their mind and body. When he recounts how popular yoga was among hippies in the 60s, he passes over the possibility that their trance-like state might have had something to do with another popular pastime.

If a religion like Scientology, also based on spiritual rehabilitation, can have its critics, why can’t yoga be interrogated for its cult-like following? At one point Ferrand simply states that “50 million North Americans can’t be wrong.” A typically naive statement.

At the end, the director finally declares: “Yoga has won me over. It has earned my respect.” No surprise there, but I can’t say I feel that way about Planet Yoga.

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