Here’s a pitch that wouldn’t be hard to sell on a college campus — a religion about sex, drugs ‘n’ rock and roll. After all, many of us are already devotees to at least one of them. The co-directors, Maria Demopoulos and Jodi Wille, tell the story from the points of view of several people who were a part of the cult, the Source Family, in this documentary.
Certainly, cults are not seen in a positive light due to the likes of Charles Manson or cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. “There were hundreds, if not thousands, of these groups all over the United States, and the ones that got the most attention were the ‘bad cults,’” Demopoulos said, citing examples such as Steve Jobs as people who have benefited from living in communes. “There were so many of these social experiments, and even right around the area of Berkeley, there were many, many of these experiments,” she continued. “This is the first film to re-examine that period of history from an insider’s point of view.”
The leader of the Source Family is a mythical figure in his own right who could have a documentary made all about him. The 6-foot-4 Jim Baker, later known as Father Yod, was a judo champion, bank robber, Hollywood stuntman and wildly successful restaurateur before becoming a spiritual leader. The film begins with a still image of him, slowly zooming in while voiceovers praise him and tell supernatural anecdotes about him.
Though Father Yod is clearly a centerpiece and a catalyst for the story told in “The Source Family,” the richness of its content comes from the stories that are told by the members about what the experience has done for their lives (including one that has moved on and become a multi-millionaire through stemcell research). The directors were overwhelmed by the wealth of the archival footage and the honesty of the family members during their interviews. “The biggest challenge was that there were so many characters, so many family members, so it was hard to choose which characters to put in the film and which not,” Demopoulos said. “We wanted to put all of them in, all of their point of views were so interesting.”
Hearing the stories from the family members enriches the experience. However, with many of the members looking back affectionately, there wasn’t much conflict nor much criticism. Nevertheless, one objective that’s clear is they wanted to make it apparent that joining cults and communes is not necessarily a negative experience for the people who have joined them, with the opinions told straight from — well, the source.
“When the Source Family existed in the late ’70s, there became this anti-cult backlash where everyone was anti-cult,” Demopoulos commented. “All of the idealism of that generation and the spiritual explosion that was happening at that time had to go underground or became trumped by the consumer culture of the ’80s. Now, we’re kind of coming full circle, and these ideas are becoming popular again.”
The ideas of the era have undoubtedly made a return. Another reason that the Source Family has been gathering attention is their psychedelic music, which they made under the name Yo Ho Wha 13. The whole soundtrack of the movie is composed of their songs, and it enhances the atmosphere of the archival footage.
A character-driven documentary must have a compelling subject or a relatable one. Father Yod compels, but he becomes a tough character to relate to. It becomes muddled at times exactly how the directors want to depict him due to the disparity between the interviews and some of the information they relay about him. A clip from “Saturday Night Live” is an apparent attempt to gain sympathy from the audience, but it adds on to the unfortunate comedic feel of a cult that is a spitting image of the new age stereotype. On the other hand, his first wife (by the end, he has 13), Robin, becomes a character who demands sympathy (and yet another character worth making a full-length documentary about).
Perhaps it works, though, because the project employed two directors as well as two editors. This could have been a film that portrays the story of a spiritual leader who becomes drunk with power or one that tries to defend the positivity of cults. Instead, it becomes a captivating cornucopia of information that viewers can draw their own conclusions from.
“The Source Family” is not a film about a cult — it is a fascinating attempt at humanizing those who have been a part of them.
Contact Ephraim Lee at [email protected].