The Beatles and India Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

The Beatles and India Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 20, 2022

Among the many signifiers of the cultural zeitgeist back in the day used to be appearances on magazine covers, and two in 1968 perhaps showed the wide reaction to a certain perceived spiritual leader's sudden rise to prominence courtesy of his interaction with a bunch of show business types from a variety of media. The interesting thing about these magazine covers is that they both feature (largely) the same "cast of characters", and yet their depictions are as different as the magazines themselves, namely The Saturday Evening Post and Mad. The May 4, 1968 Post cover offered a photo montage of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Mia Farrow, and the Beatles (and various hangers on like wives and/or girlfriends), while breathlessly trumpeting, "Here's the scene: The Beatles, Mia Farrow and a Post reporter all gather in India to meditate with The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi". Mad on the other hand came along a few months later in September of that year with a typically pointed illustration showing the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi himself among the "believers" (?), once again including Mia Farrow and the Beatles, holding aloft Alfred E. Neuman, who is appropriately hirsute and clad in a so-called maharishi suit. (Kind of interestingly in this regard, and perhaps saliently indicating that the magazine wasn't exactly keeping up with the "currency" of its title, Time featured the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on a cover quite a bit later in 1975.) John Lennon may have famously quipped in 1966 that the Beatles "were more popular than Jesus now," but by 1968 the question could have reasonably been asked as to whether it was the Beatles or the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who was/were the more dominant influence. The relationship between the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Beatles in particular was an odd marriage made in whatever the Transcendental Meditation version of heaven might be, and it created ripples globally that played out in a number of fascinating ways.

One of the kind of ironic things about that Time cover coming so late is that the Post and Mad covers were also too late in a way, since by May of 1968, the Beatles had already bid adieu to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi under circumstances which this documentary get into toward its closing moments. But as The Beatles and India also makes clear, if the time period of roughly 1967 to 1968 is seen as the apex of general public consciousness about the Beatles' interest in India and the Maharishi's teachings, that love, at least for George Harrison if not all of his compatriots in the band, had begun much earlier, in fact as this documentary perhaps alludes to, in utero. If the "celebrity religiosity" of interacting with the Maharishi would be one of the more overt flirtations with Indian customs, more subliminal uses, like the now famous sitar in "Norwegian Wood", had been there for some time, and in fact a needed sitar string for the recording of that song is the subject of one of this piece's many sweet, personal reminiscences.

There are a few kind of odd narrative elisions in this piece which make a bit of the timeline somewhat confusing, but the Beatles' fascination with Maharishi was definitely not confined to visits to India, and in fact kind of hilariously included a visit to Wales, of all places, where Brian Epstein's sudden death suddenly thrust the Maharishi into a quasi-counselor and even father figure, as archival video and audio of this time makes pretty clear. That may give a little insight into why the Beatles, or at least George and John in particular, decided to go live with the Maharishi at his ashram in Rishikesh, which is the now celebrated 1968 event that led to worldwide coverage and several memorable magazine covers. The event was so huge, in fact, that there's a kind of funny anecdote shared by one intrepid journalist who may have resorted to a bit of subterfuge to get the "big scoop".

Playing out against all of the kind of "woo woo" stuff with the Maharishi is George's undeniable love for and wishes to study Indian music, which of course ultimately brought him under the tutelage of Ravi Shankar. While these two "plot" points (i.e., the Maharishi material and the Shankar material) might seem to not be especially well integrated, in fact they're virtually inseparable, since George in particular was so "called" to both Indian music and spiritualism. That may make the somewhat tawdry way the band's relationship with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi fell apart, which here is ascribed mostly to Alexis Mardas (AKA "Magic Alex"), rather sad, though George evidently returned to the Maharishi's side late in life and tried to make amends.

This is a really beautifully done documentary that has enough archival video and audio from actual participants to give it the ring of authenticity, but which rather sweetly "reaches out" to a whole host of seemingly "sidebar" characters who interacted with events in some way or the other. The result is heartfelt and informational in about equal measure.

The Beatles and India Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Beatles and India is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (mostly) in 1.85:1. This is yet another documentary which has an unavoidably heterogeneous appearance due to being cobbled together from so many disparate archival sources. As should be expected, all of the contemporary interview and location footage looks sharp and well detailed, with a natural palette. Fine detail in these segments is typically excellent throughout. As should also be expected, the archival movie footage is widely variable in quality, with some looking decently intact but other moments frankly pretty ragged. As tends to be the case, stills utilized look very good overall. I noticed no compression issues, though the wide variety of sources means everything from clumpy grain to video noise can be spotted.

The Beatles and India Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Beatles and India offers DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 audio options. Anyone hoping for a glut of Beatles material on this soundtrack is going to be disappointed, and in fact it looks like maybe there was a tie in soundtrack release for this piece that featured Indian musicians doing Beatle music. Suffice it to say, there isn't a note of recognizable Beatles music here, which I suspect is due to the undue cost of having to license Beatles music. As such, the surround track may not offer a huge upgrade, though the music that is included does achieve at least a bit more spaciousness in the surround offering. That said, both tracks offer more than capable support for what is probably more important, the actual spoken material, all of which sounds clear, even given the vagaries of some archival elements. Optional English subtitles are available, and kind of comically even show up to duplicate burnt it English subtitles and other identifiers that are in certain moments.

The Beatles and India Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Additional Interviews (HD; 21:17)


• Ashram Map (HD; 5:58) is a kind of fun mini-tour of the facilities.


• Production Photo Diary (HD; 3:18)


• Trailer (HD; 2:08)

The Beatles and India Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are so many wonderful anecdotes and/or moments in this piece that it's hard to choose, but I'll mention two in closing, only because each made me laugh out loud in different ways. One involved a female Beatles fan who managed to get into a hotel where they were staying and who actually got into George's actual hotel room, much to his dismay. The other involved an interview with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi where he's asked about who would benefit from his techniques, and he says quite without irony (or apparently so), that only those with large incomes need apply. Other interviews offer some incredibly sweet remembrances from a variety of people who were around either during the Maharishi "moment" or the continuing love affair that George in particular had with Indian music and culture, and their participation gives this piece an undeniable emotional underpinning. Technical merits are solid, and The Beatles and India comes Highly recommended.