Within the iconography of rock and roll history, perhaps no moment is more influential than the Beatles embarking on a journey of self-discovery to Rishikesh, India, to partake in Transcendental Meditation (TM).

Nine months prior, the band had released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to critical and commercial success, followed six months later with the debut of Magical Mystery Tour. To many, the Beatles were no longer just musicians -- they took up the mantle of spiritual gurus, partly due to George Harrison’s growing fascination with the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

In February 1968, the Fab Four headed to India, and along the way encountered Paul Saltzman, a 23-year-old Canadian who serves as the protagonist for the documentary Meeting The Beatles in India.

The film tells the story of the band’s travels through the eyes of Saltzman, who, after a breakup, finds himself searching for spiritual enlightenment in India, only to run into and form a friendship with Paul, John, George, and Ringo. Luckily for musical historians, Saltzman, a future filmmaker, had his camera with him and captured some of the most stunning and intimate photos of the band’s day-to-day life in Rishikesh.

For any Beatles fan, the documentation of this period is a holy grail. The images and anecdotes captured by Saltzman provide insight into the group’s creative process and its eventual culmination in The White Album. Throughout this journey of self-discovery, Saltzman recounts being a firsthand witness to the inception of songs like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” or “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill.” For any fan (myself included), these moments are awe-inspiring and, in some ways, even comforting to see the beauty unfold. Yet, therein lies the fundamental flaw of the film’s storytelling: nostalgia left unchecked.

It is an impossible task to uncover in the span of 800 minutes, let alone the film’s runtime of 80 minutes. As a result, Saltzman’s retelling of his time there feels nostalgic, almost to the point of blissful ignorance. The film presents a narrative with rose-colored glasses, focusing on the positive reactions of TM and the beliefs of Yogi, while seemingly avoiding the spiritual guru’s alleged sexual misconduct. Mia Farrow, briefly mentioned in the documentary as one of the high-profile celebrities studying under Yogi and interacting with the band, has been candid about her experience there. The film spends little of its runtime discussing Farrow’s alleged sexual assault at the hands of the spiritual guru, which ultimately is believed to have been a factor in the band’s decision to leave Rishikesh.

The choice to name-drop Farrow, but avoid any larger discussion, feels deliberate. In doing so, it makes the documentary seem more akin to an infomercial for Transcendental Meditation, rather than a documentation of this period. As a result, the film feels slightly hollow as it wraps to its conclusion and Saltzman recounts everyone going their separate ways but taking with them the lessons they learned in Rishikesh, with only a brief mention of the controversy.

This nostalgic approach to storytelling is further exaggerated when famous figureheads appear in the documentary and essentially tell their stories of TM and Yogi’s teachings in only a positive light.

For some, the anecdotes and pictures will be enough to fuel the runtime of the film. Certainly, as a Beatles fan, the accounts kept me invested. As a brief history lesson on this period of rock and roll history and an overview of the fundamentals of TM, Meeting The Beatles in India is quite successful, but for anyone even vaguely familiar with this historic event, the documentary might seem surface-level and nothing more than a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Yet, despite its storytelling flaws, Saltzman’s account makes the legendary figures seem far more tangible both interpersonally and as artists as they befriend a stranger from across the world.

Meeting the Beatles in India is now available on Blu-ray (via Unobstructed View).

Author Bio:

Ben Friedman is a contributing writer and film critic at Highbrow Magazine.

For Highbrow Magazine