Dirty Old Man on a Lust Trip or Benevolent Leader?

THE SOURCE FAMILY (2012)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A stillborn baby comes back to life! A cult family work at a health food restaurant! Actor Bud Cort joined the cult (though he only attended a couple of classes at the restaurant)! A self-proclaimed guru hand glides from atop a cliff and doesn't survive! Is this some sort of modern-day parable about a latter day Jesus? No, this is actually a powerful, rhapsodically intoxicating documentary called "The Source Family." It is so richly alive and such a uniquely transportative movie experience that you really feel you are in a different time and place. It is that transcendence that speaks to the utopian family known as the Source, their ability to speak to those who wanted to join. I've seen a few documentaries about cults but this is the first time I truly felt what it is like to be in one.

Jim Baker aka Father Yod is the Source Family cult leader, a successful businessman (former WW2 soldier and expert martial-artist) who started a few health food restaurants in L.A. near the Sunset Strip in the early 70's, the main attraction being a restaurant called The Source. This restaurant attracted the likes of John Lennon and Goldie Hawn to name a couple, and was even featured in some movies like Woody Allen's "Annie Hall." After some time, a bunch of hippies and 17-year-old girls joined the cult, with the pretense of working at the restaurant, as in washing dishes, waiting on customers, etc. Before long, Father Yod sold his restaurants and they all lived in a giant house, sporting white robes, staring at the skies, loving each other in harmony, smoking small doses of pot and practicing intense meditation. Eventually, the family moved to Hawaii, facing a tougher time of finding work to support each other. Meanwhile, Father Yod uses his powers of persuasion to have sex with multiple underage girls, impregnating a couple and marrying them along the way. Even then, there was a devotion to a man who was slowly becoming a god with penetrating eyes who just wanted peace, a heavenly peace that was still fraught with unfortunate exclusion (Gays were not allowed, for example, and women existed to serve him without any real independence).

Directors Maria Demopoulos and Jodi Wille provide an astounding assembly of sound recordings (Sod's voice itself sounds like a God that is beyond our vocal range), 8mm film footage that covers just about every step of the cult's journey, and several amazing photos. It is an enveloping mosaic that traces everything about the Source Family in all their glory and eventual end (Yod died in a hand gliding accident). Various cult members offer their insights into Yod and his teachings, and how some of his rules got out of hand (he did not believe in seeking professional medical help when someone was injured or worse). Only one member on camera saw through what they perceived as a facade for, as one put it, "a dirty old man on a lust trip." If there is an aspect to Yod we can't figure out, it would be if he was on some sort of lust trip (sex with all underage girls) or if he started to believe he had summoned some sort of cosmic power from the heavens. That enigma brings something forceful to the screen, a rhapsodic need to fuel some measure of passion in the lives of its members that went beyond themselves - to transcend time and space. If he was a con man who just wanted sex, pot and rock and roll (they did have a rock band), this film makes the case that he was in fact a spiritual leader and father to many, warts and all.

Inspired by the book "The Source: The Story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13, and The Source Family" written by Isis Aquarian and Electricity Aquarian and edited by Jodi Wille (one of the co-directors), "The Source Family" may make some uncomfortable with its own benevolent attitude to a benevolent leader and its cult, though it never paints him as a perfect man/prophet (the guy did kill in his earlier years and robbed banks, left his wife, etc). The film is a hallucinatory, thoroughly engaging trip back to an era post-Manson where a family believed in spreading goodwill and living off the land. We can understand how anyone might've joined this cult and took heed on phrases like “No hurt or harm intended” and “Just be kind.” "The Source Family" is a powderkeg of a documentary that makes you believe that someone could make such ideas real, and then it makes you wonder if Father Yod really believed it himself or if it was an elaborate con.