Meetings With
Remarkable Men
Directed By Peter Brooks
uring
his long career, director Peter Brook has
conducted a wide range of theatrical experiments,
pushing audiences and performers well beyond
their typical experience of theater, in an
effort to achieve not a temporary catharsis
but a transcendent, transformative event.
As the narrator of THE MAHABHARATA says, "If
you listen carefully, at the end, you'll
be somebody else." This interest in
transformation that has characterized the
latter part of Brook's career continues with
this adaptation of the autobiography of famed
mystic G.I. Gurdjieff, which stars Dragan
Maksimovic. Driven by a sense of unwavering
dedication to unraveling the meaning of human
existence, he journeys throughout the most
unattainable areas of the East, encountering
an array of Hindu fakirs, Buddhist monks,
whirling dervishes, and gurus of every stripe.
In search of enlightenment, he climbs the
Himalayas, walks across the desert on stilts,
and uncovers evidence of an ancient order,
guards of an arcane wisdom. Most fascinating,
perhaps, is the form of dance he created
as a form of meditation and later taught
in the West. A film that may be best appreciated
by those already familiar with the work of
Gurdjieff, Meetings
With Remarkable Men features
spectacular photography and a highly evocative
score, incorporating various indigenous musics.
