Three Miles North of Molkom

(Corrina Villari-McFarlane/Robert Cannan):

Running time: 107 mins

Rating: 4/5(15A)

Phonetically 'comic' and 'karmic' are close to the same word, which aptly conveys the sensation of going deep into the lakeside forests of Sweden with a documentary camera team to be a fly-on-the-wall during a two-week series of spiritual workshops. Here, small sharing groups of strangers attending a tented 'new age' festival are guided through an intensive programme of shamanic workshops that culminates with everyone naked in the loft of a giant wood barn where, guided by robed teachers, they indulge in full sexual intimacy. The presence of a sceptical back-packing Aussie rugby player, who's only there to please his Norwegian girlfriend but ends up if not convinced at least respectful, helps directors Corrina Villari-McFarlane and Robert Cannan – who valiantly shed their own gear to shoot the climactic Tantric-sex sequence – achieve a documentary that's neither a prurient x-rated variation of a Big Brother reality show nor a ridiculously saucy Carry On film but a genuine and weirdly entertaining exercise in social anthropology. The participants seem oblivious to the presence of cameras and so emotionally wrapped up in their commitment to enlightenment through esoteric sessions of chanting, touching, feeling, tree-hugging and midnight fire-walking that the daftness of it all becomes almost irrelevant.