Movie Review for Decoding Deepak

Posted by Charmaine Blake on Oct 8th, 2012 in Documentary, New Releases | 0 comments

Movie Review for Decoding Deepak

Decoding Deepak Chopra is a documentary film created by Gotham Chopra which was released in theatres last October 5th 2012. In this documentary film, Gotham Chopra goes on a year-long journey with his father Deepak Chopra to paint a raw picture of his father. Through these times, Gotham tries to give audiences a glimpse into the life an icon that is well known around the world and the father that he knows. Here are a couple of movie reviews from top critics of the movie world. Let’s take a look on how this documentary film translated to them with the reviews below:

“Decoding Deepak Chopra: An Inside Journey To The Man

Made and narrated by a son in an attempt to reconcile his own perception of his father with that of the public at large, Gotham Chopra’s Decoding Deepak is as much an exercise in self-help as it is a demystification of its title character. Deepak Chopra, whose protégés include Lady Gaga and Oprah, has by his own admission long seen the suffering of others as a chance to practice his craft—which mostly consists of pseudoscience and vague screeds on consciousness vis-à-vis our place in the universe. Following the celebrity guru into Thailand for his ordainment as a Buddhist monk, the film is at its best when Gotham can’t help but see through his father, who seems entirely restless without an audience and a smartphone through which to be reminded of their adoration of him. “I’m not pointing this out because I have a bone to pick with him,” Gotham says. “I’m pointing it out because it’s true.” Fair enough. He says several other damning things about his father along the way—”The more I follow him, the more I see he’s driven by an insatiable desire to be relevant”—but never comes across as vindictive. In that way, he does something a lot of other documentarians try at and fail: makes something intimate and relevant to the outside world, which is especially helpful given how many people have only seen his father’s public face.

This review can be found in The Village Voice

Here’s another take into the documentary film created by Gotham Chopra written by Andy Webster

“A Tribute To His Father: Decoding Deepak Chopra

It hasn’t been easy being the son of Deepak Chopra, the guru and one-man New Age industry, if “Decoding Deepak” is any indication. “The line between business and family is permanently blurred,” says his son, Gotham, a journalist, author and documentary filmmaker who directed this record of a year spent following his father around the world.

Deepak Chopra was a successful medical educator and Mahareshi Mahesh Yogi devotee before the Chopra juggernaut as we know it took off on July 12, 1993, when he was Oprah Winfrey’s studio guest, having been recommended by Michael Jackson. (Growing up, Gotham knew Jackson.) Since then Chopra the elder has been a media and entrepreneurial phenomenon. Gotham keeps up as they race to cable TV appearances; India; a video-game company; a Thai monastery; a Chopra Center retreat in Sedona, Ariz. — the father forever consulting his BlackBerry.

And what does he sell? Jargon like “cosmic poetry,” “quantum consciousness” and “space-time geometry,” often conflating scientific and philosophical terms lumped under “the ineffable.” A fan speaks of listening rapturously to a Chopra speech but of being unable to recount the words.

“Decoding” ultimately becomes Gotham’s gentle tribute to Dad, who shall probably provide handsomely for his heirs. It is also a tacit endorsement of Chopra Inc.”