The Art of Meditation

A documentary about young people with autism, and how arts and creative therapies help them to lead fuller lives.

Jag Mandir is a quiet and often overlooked film in the vast oeuvre of Werner Herzog. Apparently, 20 hours of footage was shot that covered the whole fest and the film hardly presents us a twentieth of that. A native walking into the film in between may well fail to immediately realize that it is his country that is being shown and these are figures from the mythology of various sections of his nation. The bulk of the film consists of footage of an elaborate theatrical performance for the Maharana Arvind Singh Mewar at the City Palace of Udaipur, Rajasthan staged by André Heller.

A document of Tatsumi Hijikata's Butoh dance with Kazuo Ohno as the guest dancer shot in Hijikata's early period when he was emerging as the originator of Butoh. All of the male dancers are dressed up with evening suits and move gracefully, yet an intruder breaks up the whole scene abruptly. The film is worth seeing, even if just to see a memorable gay duet of Hijikata and Ohno. Overexposed, washed out images are sandwiched among normal ones.

Britney Spears: In the Zone is a busy batch of Britney-mania, much of it featuring Spears in crisp dance numbers supplemented by behind-the-scenes glimpses and chatter. The heart of the DVD is an ABC television special featuring live performances of "Toxic," "Breathe on Me," and "I'm a Slave 4 U." A fun highlight is Spears's hip-hop collaboration with the Ying Yang Twins on "(I Got That) Boom Boom," one of the few numbers in the star's stage repertoire with a little room for spontaneity. Between songs one finds Spears gushing over her grandfather, praising her entourage, describing the emotional toll of being in the public eye, and writing songs.

Portrait of Lester Horton, a Los Angeles-based dancer, choreographer and teacher who trained many world-reknowned dancers and built the first American theater devoted permanently to dance. Former students and friends, including Bella Lewitzky, Alvin Ailey, and Carmen de Lavallade, help create a picture of Horton through interviews. Includes numerous dance excerpts.

Olivier Assayas’ Eldorado is a riveting documentary chronicling the efforts of Ballet Preljocaj to choreograph an otherworldly icon of 21st century music: Karlheinz Stockhausen’s ethereal Sonntags-Abschied.

As well as providing the subject for Luc Besson’s The Big Blue, Jacques Mayol did more than anyone to establish the sport of free diving to enormous depths without an oxygen supply. Using breathing techniques derived from yoga, he went to 50, 60, and even 100 meters—depths no one had considered to be within the bounds of human possibility. Mayol was a sportsman, a mystic, a vagabond, but above all, a man who believed in testing the limits of experience. This visually stunning tribute shows a man’s quest to be at one with the vastness of the ocean and to have no fear of the abyss within, where lurks serenity, freedom and finally, death.

"Tourou et Bitti", an eight minute documentary concerning a ritual in Niger, is yet another example of Rouch's excellence in creating documentaries which surpass the conventional documentary format. Just as frightening and fascinating as "Les maîtres fous", this one goes straight into the roots of ancient African cultures, in which music has an hypnotic effect, being at the same time an exorcism and a public show. Both the female and the male dancers are almost deities about to be unleashed... Spectral and humanitarian.

A short documentary following Paulette Harwood, a 90-year-old former Radio City Music Hall Corps de Ballet soloist, as she teaches the final classes in a school she's run for sixty years.

Alan Watts talks about our perception of the world, and how we derive metaphysics from it. Watts recorded this video in 1971 as a pilot for a public television series in the United States.

Thich Nhat Hanh, monk, zen teacher, writer and peace activist, born in Vietnam in 1926, was the organiser of a non-violent resistance movement after the outbreak of the Vietnam War. We follow Thich Nhat Hanh around the time of Memorial Day of 9/11 in Washington D.C., where he teaches Members of Congress the concepts of ‘Mindful Living’. He tries to convey his message of peace straight to the centre of world power. Thousands of people participate each year in the meditation retreats led by Thich Nhat Hanh. In his monastic community Plum Village in the south of France, his home base, he brings groups of Palestinians and Israelis together. Horrible experiences are exchanged and discussed for the first time, in the hope that people may come to recognize each other’s suffering.