Naked in Ashes Reviews

Paula Fouce's documentary about several of these yogis gives us a kind of cinéma vérité peek into their lives as they perform their rituals and prepare for the great meeting, or Kumbh Mela, of yogis in Ujjain, held in 2003.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

With its TV-style production values and bland educational tone, Naked in Ashes might be suitable for PBS or the Discovery Channel, but it's not much of a feature film.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Does so much of what we want from documentary -- it teaches us new ways that lives can be lived. And religion or no, that always expands the spirit.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Naked in Ashes could easily provide answers but doesn't, and so it invites only unexamined faith or skepticism.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

As an intimate glimpse into an otherwise hidden world, it's admittedly absorbing, but the subjects merit a more rigorous portrait.

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It idolizes the idea of spiritual purity without offering any insight into what it really means.

Full Review | Original Score: D

With Naked in Ashes, Los Angeles-based filmmaker Paula Fouce manages a dubious feat of underachievement: She's made a documentary about Hindu mystics that's only marginally enlightening about its subject matter.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Plenty thought-provoking, but it's not much of a movie and ultimately inspires curiosity rather than passion.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

An edifying look at the lives and spiritual practices of twenty Hindu holy men in India who meditate, serve others and take on austerities as part of their path.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

An inspirational and cautionary film that documents the hermetic lives of a handful of Indian yogis.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Naked in Ashes is a respectful, illuminating appreciation of a few of the estimated 13 million yogis in India.

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[Director Paula Fouce] has a passion for the holy ways of the East, and it shines through in Naked in Ashes.

| Original Score: 3/4

This documentary provides an intimate yet ultimately unsatisfying glimpse into the everyday lives of several Indian yogis.

| Original Score: 3/5

Christopher Tufty's camera captures intimate detail and broad panorama, a television in a hut and 100,000 naked guys bathing in the Ganges at Ujjain, a festival that happens every 12 years.

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Pictures one of the fascinating groups -- here, related Yogis -- who will make up one of India's immense festivals along the Ganges.

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Cleverly avoids passing judgment on some seemingly bizarre behaviors, while at the same time explaining how a 5,000-year-old tradition can really mean something today.

Full Review | Original Score: A

The world Fouce takes the viewer into is intoxicatingly rich and varied, at once immediate and contemporary and timeless with its images of ancient temples, elephants and the yogis.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

In spite of its aspirations toward enlightenment, Naked in Ashes leaves its audiences bewildered.

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