Ganges: River to Heaven

A very beautifully shot, but tremendously slow documentary on the culture of death and dying by the Ganges River. The color palette of washed-out purples and golds is enrapturing, but the film spends a long time in and around a hospice for the dying without really capturing the personal or emotional aspects of the experience. Later, though, as it begins to deal with the pollution and profiteering that surround death and the river, it becomes compellingly horrifying. It’s an odd transition from peaceful scenes of religious observance to half-burned bodies floating in the fetid river while people bathe and drink the infested waters. It’s definitely an odd film, but a bit too distanced for its own good.