Ganga Maya (1984)

Overview

This superficial, psychological travelog is about a young man who goes to India, leaving behind the woman he once loved, to search for a spiritual awakening. His first such awakening comes in Calcutta when his baggage is stolen, but undaunted, he jumps on a cargo boat going up the sacred Ganges River and thus begins a journey that will take him to the home of a family in a small village and eventually up into the mountains -- long held to be the best places for spiritual discovery. If the internal life of the young man was described in terms of a turbulent past history, unconquerable emotions, trauma, or whatever it was that drove him to India, then viewers might find some inspiration in his journey. As it stands, most audiences would be hard put to sympathize with his search without a good reason -- though the external journey is poetically and eloquently filmed.