Word: hanser
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...NOBLE TREASON by Richard Hanser Putnam; 319 pages...
...stand here and attract energy to the community..." No, sir, this is not an introduction to a five-minute Exxon promo, this is a 30ish female going on about her devotion to a new brand of scientific mysticism known as the Arica theory, and that is what David Hanser's The Forty Day Experience is all about...
...Arica theory and the intense sensations they undergo during their 40-day training session at a remote community nestled in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. However, in trying to condense the various stages of the trainees' five-week-long encounter with the Arica theory into a taut, fastmoving film, Hanser leaves many questions about his subject unanswered and strips his work of many of the necessary documentary qualities. Indeed, as The Forty Day Experience moves crisply towards its seemingly premature end, the film assumes the quality of a come...
...thing, Hanser's film never clearly distinguishes the so-called Arica theory from other forms of religion any mysticism and its attractions for 40,000 American Africans. To be sure, The Forty Day Experience gives the viewer some idea of the theory's principles and how they relate to an individual's day-to-day existence. The film opens with a dazzling shot of the sun above the ocean--replete with rich color schemes of oranges, purples, and reds--as a voice-over observes that "we lose our innocence through psychic pollution," which is, "like environmental pollution, an inevitable result...
THIS OBTRUSIVE RECITING of the Arica metaphysic detracts considerably from the film's documentary texture. Fortunately, this questionable device is partially offset by Hanser's unflinching look at the more excruciating encounter sessions among the trainees. These sequences are integrated into the film's discussion of the three major instincts of man according to the teachings of Arica's guru, a Bolivian named Oscar Ichazo. In one instance, a young man in his 20s recalls a confrontation with his father which prompted him to call his father "stupid." The camera records the young man's acute sense of remorse over...