Mind Body Spirit

Another film focussing on nauseating self-centred social media influencers. Another "found footage" film that brings nothing new or interesting...potentially even less than the minimum you'd expect.

At points it seems like it's trying to being satirical about how pretentious, ostentatious and vapid influencers are, but it's not done well if that was a motive of the writers as it would be missed by most viewers as the fake product placements ads almost glorify them.

The story itself is rather hollow. While there's some attempt to tie it to ancient slavic rituals of the main character's grandmother and ancestors, there's no depth to it at all, or any real back-story, and is merely a minor attempt to create the basis for the "creepy old lady in the dark" trope.

This was recommended to me by a few people on some Facebook groups, so I decided to give it a chance as I love found footage movies. The movie started pretty interesting, the set design was okay and the actor didn't really annoy me which was good enough for me to stick around. But then it kinda started repeating itself, the acting switched from acceptable to irritating (which could be purposefully done but I doubt it) and the movie itself started having an identity crisis. It was like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be, a found footage film or a regular movie with cinematic shots. The camera movements in many scenes made no sense whatsoever as realistically there was nobody around to move it like that. I was constantly asking myself "WHO is moving the camera????" which took me out of the movie in most of these shots. It was so blatantly obvious attempt of the director trying too hard to be cinematic. In the end, we got a jumbled mess that is hard to call it as a fine example of a found footage movie. Overall, I wouldn't really recommend this film. It's nothing you haven't seen before. It's not scary, it's not really found footage and it's not cleverly done whatsoever.

Found footage is a favourite choice for film-makers with miniscule budgets because the medium lends itself well to thrifty movie-making. You can get away with not showing the monster clearly; not worrying too much about mise en scène; not having flashy special effects. This is largely what makes found footage work: it's raw, unfiltered and, above all, it feels genuine.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a growing number of found footage films where the creators have opted for the genre to save money, without actually considering what makes an FF film work.

Mind Body Spirit is one if these films. Ostensibly a collection of recordings from a wannabe YouTube star making wellness videos, the film falls at the first hurdle by completely undermining the idea that this is anything but a low-budget film.

It breaks a cardinal sin of Found Footage by having a soundtrack. There is ambient music and non-diagetic sound throughout, which immediately makes the film seem completely disingenuous. The filmmakers seem to have added it because, y'know, that's what happens in scary movies, forgetting that this is meant to be a series of candid, unedited recordings from an amateur filmmaker.

Then there are scenes which seem to be showing what's going on in the protagonists head, despite the fact that it makes no sense that the camera would capture them.

There was the scene with the "string", which featured such laughably unrealistic and entirely unnecessary special effects, it brought the while scene to a grinding halt.

And there are all the scenes where the camera moves in it's own, with no explanation, in just the right way to capture things in a cinematic way.

If you're going to make a found footage film, every single attempt you make to be more cinematic weakens the authenticity, and ultimately just reminds the viewer that they're watching a zero-budget indy movie.

To my delight, I was treated to this film as the opening night film at the Freak Show Horror Film Festival. With a few exceptions here and there I can say with great passion that I am not a fan of the found footage genre, a genre that has its value in the genre but one that I find repetitive throughout and there always comes a point where I can't find justification in the characters' continued use of a camera outside of the need to carry forward a film for another 70 minutes.

Mind Body Spirit does what few in the genre have managed to do in creating a clever use of the camera and one that justifies its continued use and allows us, without giving spoilers, to not only view this piece through the eyes of our protagonist but as voyeurs as well, looking in on something truly frightening that we shouldn't be looking in on.

There are so few performances here in this one, with Sarah J. Bartholomew expertly carrying the bulk of the film on her shoulders, oftentimes being the only character we see on screen for extended periods of time. Madi Bready offers a strong supporting performance as an overly arrogant influencer and, with the little she has on screen, Anna Knigge also manages a sharp performance that feels emotional and grounded enough in its minimal appearance that it manages to pull the viewer in and make us care for the troubled separation of mother and daughter.

The scares are genuinely impactful, relying on clever camera work and a keen eye rather than jump scares and heavy gore with a minimalist score that never overstays its welcome and never comes too soon.

Overall, I've been to many festivals and seen many films at these festivals and I've never felt so compelled to run to IMDb and leave a review for one of them. This one is different. It's competently made and shows true artistic merit. Flock to this one when it's available. It's most certainly a top tier showcase of indie filmmaking.

Anya starts to explore her Slavic ancestry after moving into her inherited grandmother's house and finds a book left by her grandmother with mysterious rituals. She decides these rituals make better content than the usual yoga instructions she has tried to build an online following with.

Good ideas, the film keeps your attention throughout.

But the acting is so-so and the different themes don't quite fit together. Online yoga and the shallowness of the influencer culture is one important layer, which could have been explored a lot more. The Russian yoga traditions, with such luminaries as the Roerich couple, is hinted at, but largely absent.

So, I have a theory about how the ideas behind this film came together. The writers discussed how creepy yoga can actually be (strange body stretching, weird postures and falsely smiling faces). They googled yoga and found Agni Yoga, the Russian variety, as well as the discussions about cultural appropriation and inauthenticity. Without doing more research than that, they put this film together. That would be the explanation to why the film lacks a satisfying whole and is rather a mishmash of stuff related to the word Yoga.

Again though, a quick and attention-grabbing flick.