AllMovie

The Kumbha Mela holy festival in India is the ostensible topic for this documentary, but the distorted forms and colors that are meant to convey a psychedelic experience of the festival are not for everyone. Final scenes from the crowds and the big procession to the river are treated in the same psychedelic way -- after a 40-minute introduction of water views accompanied by music. Kumbha refers to a water vase and also the constellation Aquarius. The Khumbha Mela (mela is a fair) is held every 12 years at a few primary sites in India, the most important being Allahabad, at the confluence of India's two most sacred rivers, the Ganges and the Yamuna.