Word: mysticism
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...young Masai tribesmen sucking up the blood of a dead bullock, black coolies scooping out elephant feet to make wastebaskets for the U.S. market. Cinematic Afrophiles will relish the rare, sleek okapi, a herd of sunbathing hippos, the giant Latukas whose hunters tower seven feet tall, and the mystic snake dance of the Mariari cult...
...work, whose humans are always drawn in the frontal, wedge-trunk position (as in Egyptian art), whose women are handily identified by little bumps on their chests and whose animals, the quagga and antelope, are far more accurately observed and gracefully drawn than the people. There are also mystic lozenges, snaky lines and blobs which apparently are respectively symbols for mountain, rain and root. For briskness of conception, facility of line, the Mtoko paintings struck critics as being plastics of considerable honest merit in themselves. A small show of advanced abstractionists like Klee, Miro, Arp and Masson was added...
Yoga is an ingrown Hindu philosophical system whose object is fusing the "individual soul" with the "universal soul." Hindu yogins achieve that mystic goal after years of practice in emotional serenity and bodily control. The desired physical relaxation of yoga is achieved by means of contortions which "purify" the body. U. S. devotees of yoga are usually more interested in the philosophical and religious than the gymnastic aspects of the system. In India, on the other hand, the most extraverted yogin to appear in centuries, Swami Kuvalayananda, thinks so highly of the physical side of yoga that he has developed...
...mystic thing about "The Mystic Mountain" is how it manages to overcome its obvious deficiencies and turn into a very passable effort at cinematic art. The effect of the really fine photography tends to be destroyed by overemphasis. Much of the acting is of the strong, silent variety, although not obvious mugging. There is a thunderstorm scene where the lightning blinds you and the sound effects resemble those of a Coney Island Tunnel of Horrors, Yet the final impression is a good...
...from plot or passions that "The Mystic Mountain" derives its excellence. It is rather from the beauty and peace of the countryside portrayed, a peace that seems to biot out even the final tragedy. The finest shot in the picture is of a flock of hens, silhouetted against the sky. The best music is that played by a peasant orchestra at a festival, with a liquid cornet carrying the melody. It is such things that make "The Mystic Mountain" worth the trip to the Fine Arts...