Ayurveda is the science of life. It is one of the ancient healing practices, dates back to 5000 years. Ayurveda emphasize on the way of life. It is not just a medication, but a lifestyle. It connects body, mind and spirit. Besides, it harmonizes the system of wellbeing by focusing on physical, psychological and emotional health.
Adding more life to the the film is a subtle gem. It invites you to discover nature and human nature with poetic images of ancient healing system known as AYURVEDA. The director did a wonderful job of displaying India as the custodian of the ancient science of healing, Ayurveda and covered a lot of ground, both figuratively and literally.
Background score adds life to the movie. The tranquil score evokes another aspect of Vedic knowledge –Ghandharva Veda the melodious of nature.
Ayurveda: Art of Being – Movie Casting
| DIRECTOR | Pan Nalin |
| YEAR OF RELEASE | 2001 |
| CAST | Brahmanand Swamigal |
| Vaidya Narayan Murthy | |
| Dr. Nicolos Kostopoulos | |
| Dr. Ashwin Barot | |
| Dr. Scott Gerson | |
| PRODUCERS | Karl Baumgartner (producer) |
| Christoph Friedel (producer) | |
| Claudia Steffen (line producer) | |
| Christa Saredi (co-producer) | |
| Reinhard Brundig (co-producer) | |
| WRITERS | Pan Nalin |
| DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY | Serge Guez |
| PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT | Dilip Shankar (production manager & researcher) |
| Natasha de Betak (2nd unit director) | |
| EDITING | Pan Nalin |
| Ben von Grafenstein | |
| MUSIC | Cyril Morin |
| SOUND | Dominique Davy |
About the Director and an Excerpt from his Interview
Pan Nalin is a director, screen writer and a documentary film maker. He is an award winning film maker.
First and most important thing that every film maker should keep in mind is to develop the clarity about the theme on which they want to make a short film. Due to internet, DVD etc. borders are being vanished. Spirituality is in our culture. I came to realize that let it be any kind of story, understanding of spirituality in it has great importance. For example, the latest highly successful commercial film Avatar has the spiritual angle in it. Likewise other films such as Star Wars and Matrix too have the spiritual concept.
But often, people do confuse spirituality with religion. I don’t believe in it at all. I believe that spirituality can exist equally in Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. Those who are highly religious, sometimes, there is no spirituality at all in them and to reverse to it, those who are not religious at all, are highly spiritual. This is actually hard to define. It’s indeed a matter of sadness that the gap between spirituality and religion is increasing day by day.
When I left my home for my passion, my father asked me “If you’ve two paths ahead of you, one quite easier and the second very tough, which one will you chose?” To which I replied “the tougher one.” And he said “Now you’re ready to go ahead.”
Take a look at some of the reviews / comments from the movie viewers:
It has been awhile since I last watched this film, but I’ve watched it several times from a standpoint that includes quite a lot of knowledge and direct experience of Ayurveda. Ayus is life and Veda is Knowledge – so Ayurveda is Knowledge or science of life. So-called “modern” or “western” medicine is a relative newcomer – having really only been around for the past 150 years or so, while Ayurveda is thousands of years old. Even in the US there is still a LOT of traditional folk medicine, and increasingly Ayurveda is making inroads and being recognized as holistic and preventative and truly a system of health care – as opposed to “modern” medicine’s fragmented (just look at the specialties) and disease care approach.
It was pleasure to watch this film. I applaud the makers of this film for bringing out this wealth of knowledge; making people aware of this ancient science. Such simple film-making and yet so impacting.
The film is about how the order of the universe, when you have the ability to perceive it, can be used to make individuals right. In essence it is about the practice of understanding cosmic order and the place of entities in that order.
Being a fan of this unique Indian filmmaker, I could not ignore Ayurveda. I watched it twice in theaters and later at home on DVD. One of the most inspiring and thought provoking work.
With “western” medicine – disease care – becoming less affordable every day, “western” drugs costing so much and having so many harmful side effects, and an epidemic of obesity in the US, this refreshing look at a simpler approach is quietly reassuring and shows us the path to integrating the best of western medicine with the time tested Knowledge of Life
Here is the link to the full movie, Ayurveda – Art of Being.