Awake: The Life of Yogananda

Even by the already shoddy standards of the talking-heads-and-stock-footage documentary subgenre, the passionate but risible Awake: The Life of Yogananda is a standout dud. The film has the starry-eyed gaze of a true believer, and most of the film is comprised of cheap, Ed Wood-level reenactments, filled out with an alternately deceptive and absurd use of clips. It's the sort of film that defines the America of 1920 through a brief montage of wing-walkers and flappers doing the Charleston with Amelia Earhart. Awake tells the story of the spiritual guru Yogananda, author of the influential Autobiography of a Yogi and a factor in introducing Eastern practices such as meditation and yoga to America. Beyond its general lifelessness, Awake repeatedly insinuates that anyone who ever stared into his eyes or practiced yoga or meditated or listened to some of George Harrison's more sitar-based stuff is a Yogananda disciple.