50
Unless you're already a true believer, Amma comes across in Darshan as a perfect angel, a frustrating enigma and a rather dull cinematic subject.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
40
Village Voice by Ben Kenigsberg
Werner Herzog's "Wheel of Time" was, in a sense, the Buddhist equivalent of this film, as well as a more illuminating look at the power and transience of ritual.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Bill White
Movies about gurus generally fail to capture the charisma of their subjects. French director Jan Kounen's documentary on Amma, India's hugging saint, who allegedly has given restorative embraces to more than 45 million supplicants, is no exception.
50
Los Angeles Times by John Anderson
While Amma's teachings of love, inner peace and Karma, or action, resonate in the film -- obviously, Amma is a woman called to God -- her background remains pretty much a mystery. Less National Geographic and more personal history would have added a dimension to "Darshan."
50
San Francisco Chronicle by John McMurtrie
A loving if fawning documentary.
75
Sebastien Pentecouteau's startlingly beautiful cinematography lends the film a dreamlike quality and perfectly suits Kounen's mystical subject matter.
70
Docu's pace will be a little too meditative for many, but the rigorous, sinewy lensing will have Hypnotic power on those so inclined.
50
When it comes to magnetism, the Rolling Stones have nothing on Amma, the Indian mahatma ("spiritual guide") chronicled in Jan Kounen's handsomely photographed but one-sided documentary.
50
According to several sojourners who speak in the film, Amma is the embodiment of love. And according to her website, it's her religion, too.