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Tomorrow morning, give this a try. When the sun is up over the horizon, go outside, and stare at it. No, right at it: Open your eyes and look at the sun for just ten seconds.
If you're like me you'll find this task nearly impossible -- I couldn't do it for one second, much less ten -- but proponents of sungazing say that if you manage to keep your eyes open, "sungazing" will do everything from cure all your illnesses and physical maladies to making it so you don't have to eat food ever again.
The catch: You'll have to work your way up to a 44-minute staring session, adding 10 seconds every day.
Sungazing is as controversial as it is, to most observers, wildly dangerous to your ocular health. And Peter Sorcher turns his own (presumably sunglassed) gaze on the issue in this documentary to suss out where the health line might lie: Can sungazing offer any benefits, or is it just wildly stupid.
At the core of the film are two entertaining characters: Mason Dwinell, a misguided and young hippie type who clearly seems sucked into this world due to his wild impressionism, and an older Indian gentleman known as HRM, who claims that sungazing has allowed him to go more than a year without any food other than "coffee, tea, and buttermilk." Myriad scientists appear on camera to back up his claims: If sungazing really has benefits, HRM is the living (if slightly crazy) proof.
We catch up with Dwinell as he is working his way toward 44 minutes. He has boundless energy, eats little, and blogs incessantly about the program. He is the unofficial ambassador for sungazing, and Sorcher seems to believe that, yes, he's the real deal. Even honest to god optometrists appear to talk about how the sun may interact with the blood that passes through the retina. The number of believers are legion.
Then there's HRM. After the testimonials are out of the way, Sorcher gets on with the most interesting part of his tale: Following HRM around San Francisco, spying on him, to see if he eats anything. At one point he steps into McDonald's... only to do nothing but order a cup of coffee.
I won't spoil what happens with Dwinell or HRM except to say that Dwinell finally has his eyes examined (but not his head) and HRM encounters an Indian buffet. It's a well-made film, a little disjointed at times and draggy in the middle as we suffer through modern-day druids and a historical understanding of sungazing's roots, but on the whole a worthwhile documentary that's fun to watch.
Ultimately, Sorcher's film is more dramatic than its subject matter, which is really little more than another hippie fad that will eventually go the way of crystal power and est. Probably sooner than later, seeing as they'll mostly be blind before too long.
If you're like me you'll find this task nearly impossible -- I couldn't do it for one second, much less ten -- but proponents of sungazing say that if you manage to keep your eyes open, "sungazing" will do everything from cure all your illnesses and physical maladies to making it so you don't have to eat food ever again.
The catch: You'll have to work your way up to a 44-minute staring session, adding 10 seconds every day.
Sungazing is as controversial as it is, to most observers, wildly dangerous to your ocular health. And Peter Sorcher turns his own (presumably sunglassed) gaze on the issue in this documentary to suss out where the health line might lie: Can sungazing offer any benefits, or is it just wildly stupid.
At the core of the film are two entertaining characters: Mason Dwinell, a misguided and young hippie type who clearly seems sucked into this world due to his wild impressionism, and an older Indian gentleman known as HRM, who claims that sungazing has allowed him to go more than a year without any food other than "coffee, tea, and buttermilk." Myriad scientists appear on camera to back up his claims: If sungazing really has benefits, HRM is the living (if slightly crazy) proof.
We catch up with Dwinell as he is working his way toward 44 minutes. He has boundless energy, eats little, and blogs incessantly about the program. He is the unofficial ambassador for sungazing, and Sorcher seems to believe that, yes, he's the real deal. Even honest to god optometrists appear to talk about how the sun may interact with the blood that passes through the retina. The number of believers are legion.
Then there's HRM. After the testimonials are out of the way, Sorcher gets on with the most interesting part of his tale: Following HRM around San Francisco, spying on him, to see if he eats anything. At one point he steps into McDonald's... only to do nothing but order a cup of coffee.
I won't spoil what happens with Dwinell or HRM except to say that Dwinell finally has his eyes examined (but not his head) and HRM encounters an Indian buffet. It's a well-made film, a little disjointed at times and draggy in the middle as we suffer through modern-day druids and a historical understanding of sungazing's roots, but on the whole a worthwhile documentary that's fun to watch.
Ultimately, Sorcher's film is more dramatic than its subject matter, which is really little more than another hippie fad that will eventually go the way of crystal power and est. Probably sooner than later, seeing as they'll mostly be blind before too long.
