Heaven's Gate

One of many "mini-series" that makes one ask: "uh, why is this padded, stretched, and larded with repetition to get to four episodes?!" I found this added little to what I learned about this group from reading major newspapers at the time. It relied too much on interviews with people who say banal or predictable things; far too much time is taken by uninteresting, shaky home video shot by the group in the 90s. If you know little about this group going in, the story may have a macabre fascination, but otherwise this documentary will likely register as a missed opportunity to better explain, with more wit and insight, the original motives for and influences on the group, apart from the psychology of the ex-music teacher at its center. Why did this cult emerge in the early 70s ( a low point for Hollywood and TV sci-fi) and extinguish itself in the mid 90s? The sentimental, indicative music and clunky editing adds to its tedium and the sense the film-makers are masking a lack of analysis. This film would have been better if the more historical approach of the first episode were extended, smartly edited, and left at 120 minutes (ep. one is by far the best of the four--as it reflects, yet still doesn't detail, that the group was analyzed and widely reported on in the mid 1970s, including a cover feature in Psychology Today: what did that author argue? Despite having the author on camera, this film doesn't specify).

I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast. So I was thinking how could this be better ? Well, the images and interviews for one. What is remarkable about some of the reviews is that there are people who rate this low because they immediately claim that they could never fall for something like this , well anyone can tell you that these reviewers are actually the most vulnerable since certainty breeds deception. The timing of this amidst the NXIVM drama unfolding may take away from the fact that these very real and profound events took place years before and have little to nothing to do with the type of bs peddled in NXIVM. Now It's helpful that more of these stories are coming to light now and while we can hope that time and education will help us or our loved ones from making the same mistakes some things can not be avoided as we quest for righteousness acceptance and love in this life. Those of us who remember the events leading up to this as it unfolded finally get an in-depth retelling of events.

I must say this doc is slow to the point, but it offers a truly inside look at this, almost entirely from first hand accounts. The music was great, with a great score, and soundtrack with some unexpected tunes from bands you know. One thing that this doc did right was the fact that they never broke the aspect ratio, as in they kept everything in 16:9 or relative, instead of going full Wes Anderson with the true aspect ratios of the different sets of film used over the years. In other words, they never broke the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. This detail might not seem important, but it helped maintain the immersion and once I noticed I couldn't help but appreciate the tricks they used to make it work. Great editing, and a film that takes its time. It lets most of the anecdotes breathe and be felt with proper impact, and it did not feel like they were manipulating the testimonies for any sort of rhetoric or agenda, other than to take a very deep inside look into the strange minds of men.

The documentary is well made. Lots of original material, interviews with ex members. No annoying voice-over or anything like that. Its really masterfully edited in order to be able to tell the story in such an authentic way. Also nice it caputures the time period contect of the story. Its a period of over 20 years so its interesting to see other things going on that might have inspired or influenced the cult. What I find lacking is that it tries to hard to explain what happens to much from the perspective from the cult members. They do have some outside experts on cults and psychology and all that but what happened is only discussed very broadly, about general techniques used by cults to "brainwash" people. What is unique about this cult is that it started quite large but over the course of those 20 years more and more left, only leaving the people that, well to be frank, apparantly were not 100% there.

What I kept thinking when watching all the cult members performing some acts: These people are obviously completely insane. Not only because of the eventual suicide but also with other things, like performing dangerous surgery in the form of castration on their own members. And of course literally looking at Star Trek for inspiration. I thought the moment that they returned a fancy telescope to the store because they thought it was broken, they couldnt see the UFO through it. Very telling... I had the idea if I was watching a documentary of the local psych ward instead of a cult at times. Usually there is at least some form of coercion by the cult leadership through hierarchy or some other method. People are prevented to leave by threats or something. Nothing like that here, they even all went to Seaworld just before it ended.

Especially because the group was never violent in any way, or tried to hide what they thought, you really got to wonder why these people were never helped. Everybody seems to have been thinking: Oh well, if thats what they want? Or that is was sort of funny to watch these idiots make a spectacle out of themselves. Anyway, the second half of the final episode is quite interesting as it shows all the reactions the event got. But for the most part during the 4 hours I was thinking: Im not watching a documentary about a cult, Im watching home videos of people suffering from mental illness in desperate need of help.

While they have many sources to interview, they fail to illuminate any of the interesting parts in the story of heavens gate. Nothing about day to day cult life, nothing about the teachings beyond the wikipedia introduction segment level, there is barely any backstory. Watched 2 episodes and learned nothing about heavens gate or cults in general. Dont watch this, do something fun instead or read the whole wikipedia page and learn more in less time...

Such strange priorities by the production company to give you zero, just constant babbling about nothing related to cults or heavens gate or the life in the cult.

Also bewildering chronology, who was in the cult when?