Stir Q&A: Monkey on a Stick filmmaker talks about his exposé of historic Hare Krishna corruption
Boldly pushing the documentary form, Vancouver director tracks a story that involved guns, drugs, money laundering, child abuse, and even murder
A reimagined scene of one of Hare Krishna’s more corrupt gurus in Monkey on a Stick.
Monkey on a Stick screens at VIFF Centre from October 25 to 28, October 31, and November 6. Director Jason Lapeyre hosts a Q&A at the screening at 2:30 pm on October 25, and at 6 pm on October 26
IN THE NEW DOCUMENTARY Monkey on a Stick, investigative journalist John Huber suggests there was “no better laboratory” for the theory that absolute power corrupts absolutely than the worldwide Hare Krishna movement of the 1970s and ’80s.
Guns, sex, money laundering, child abuse, misogyny, and even murder: they’re all here in Vancouver-based director Jason Lapeyre’s new film about the mayhem that ensued after founder Swami Prabhupada brought Krishna consciousness to the hippie generation. His death heralded the appointment of inexperienced male gurus given godlike status at temples around the world. And all hell broke loose in a movement once seen as harmless devotees chanting in the streets in their bright-orange robes. (The title refers to monkeys killed after stealing bananas at temples, left impaled there as a warning to others—and acts as a metaphor for the ruthlessness of the organization toward anyone who questions it.) How surreal do things get? Think counterfeit sports merch, a beheading, and an appearance by Alan Dershowitz.
Based on the bestselling book Monkey on a Stick: Murder, Madness, and the Hare Krishnas, by Huber and Lindsey Gruson, the documentary centres on the journey of former follower Nori Muster, as well as other ex-Hare Krishna devotees, unpacking both their initial attraction to the religion and the factors that led to criminal activity.
At one point Lapeyre travels with his crew to New Vrindaban, the opulent “Palace of Gold” built in West Virginia at the height of Hare Krishna wealth—though Monkey on a Stick shows how, in the 1970s, its denizens lived without heat or toilet paper. Elsewhere, amid the more disturbing allegations, the film documents how women were forced to send their young children to boarding schools in the U.S. and India so their parents could work harder to solicit donations for the organization; as has been widely reported since the late 1990s, sexual and physical abuse was rampant at those schools.
Monkey on a Stick is just as fascinating for its bold, form-busting aesthetic choices, mixing interviews and a wealth of archival footage with stylized dramatic sequences that draw from Lapeyre’s fiction-film background (including his critically acclaimed 2012 film I Declare War). Intertitles announce each corrupt swami with a funky nickname (the “Rock ’n’ Roll Guru”; the “LSD Guru”). Lapeyre also weaves in symbolic imagery, fourth-wall-breaking interviews about the meaning of God and the universe, and even, at one point, a trip into the supernatural.
Stir spoke to Lapeyre by Zoom at his home in Mount Pleasant before the debut of the movie at the VIFF Centre this week, where he’ll host a Q&A at the screenings on October 25 and 26. (The interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Let’s start by talking about the merry-go-round image that recurs throughout the film. It suggests the cyclical philosophy of the Hare Krishna religion, but it also relates to how we're always in this loop of following questionable leaders and the corruption that happens when they get too much power.
JL: First, it’s really important for me that people understand that the film is not an attack on Krishna consciousness, it’s not an attack on Hinduism. It’s not an attack on faith, it’s an attack on the abuse of power and on systemic unfairness and corruption. My closest collaborator on the film, Nori Muster—she and I talked a lot about how important it was to have these moments throughout the film that would remind people of the comfort of Krishna consciousness and the benefits of Krishna consciousness.
I’m not a religious person myself, but it does feel to me like a profound insight about human life to suggest that a cycle is a good way to understand life beyond birth and death. As someone who grew up in the West and was raised Anglican with sort of a linear Christian, I can really understand the appeal in so many different ways of Krishna consciousness….Tapping into that idea of cyclical nature and cyclical life and karma: I think that’s a really great way to understand why and how their religion became so popular.
But yes, spirituality and religion would be so much better if humans weren’t involved, unfortunately. So throughout the film, we really tried to sort of lean into that [circular] symbolism. And, you know, I always knew the film was going to be a theatrical experience—the idea of sort of being in a movie theatre and soaking in these images, these circular images, and these revolutions that happen over and over again. We tried to come back to that, whether it was a donut or a carousel or a revolving gas sign—these constant reminders of, ‘You’re going around and around and around.’ And how does that change?
It also symbolizes, for me, just how much fun and creativity you’re putting into the documentary form. I feel like you’ve brought everything you have to this film—the dramatic technique and all your documentary technique, and then you’re even pushing it further, into almost this spiritual or supernatural realm at moments.
JL: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s kind of how I make everything. I wouldn’t say it’s my best quality. [Laughs.]…I mean, when I read the book, the reason I wanted to adapt it in the first place was as a dramatic series. So it was over a course of years of trying to get that made and not being able to that this idea of a documentary came up. The story was just so incredible to me, how it went back and forth between this very intelligent analysis of religion and faith and spirituality, and almost an existential sort of appreciation of what people need in their lives to give them meaning. And then three pages later, you’d be in this true-crime, horror dramatization. The book also uses the technique of dramatization to tell this story. I thought it was incredibly effective, and really made the abuses of the gurus hit home in a way that maybe a drier factual retelling wouldn’t have. So I knew I wanted to use that same technique in the film…. I really wanted to grab the audience by the lapels, and, you know, put images and music together. I love the score the composer did. All of that really sends it into a place that maybe they’re not in a regular documentary where it’s just talking heads, archive, talking heads, archive.
And really, this subject matter probably allows you to do that even more than you would normally. What was the experience like going to the New Vrindaban site, and going into the former guru’s [Kirtanananda Swami’s] abandoned quarters?
JL: It was not the original plan to go to New Vrindaban itself, but the way that the documentary unfolded, we made contact with one of our subjects, Jacob Young, who’s a PBS reporter and a filmmaker, and a very good documentary filmmaker in his own right, and he lives near there. And so we drove right in, and it’s a public area. And we set up shop, we filmed an interview, and he led us around and showed us some of the things and and then he said, ‘Well, now do you want to see the house that Kirtanananda lived in and is now like a rotting, you know, skeleton of what it used to be?’ And we went over there, and that was pretty scary. I mean, that was really like driving deep into the woods in the middle of nowhere to look at a rotting, dead cult leader’s child-abuse den. That was very unsettling. And certainly we took a bit of a reduced crew in there to do that….In some ways, on the surface, it’s a popular tourist attraction in West Virginia, but it’s an interesting reminder of, like, if things just shift a little bit, if a few elements go this way, it’s a cult. It was quite striking in that way.
Monkey on a Stick.
There are also moments throughout the film where you pose these larger philosophical questions to people—and even a child—who answer them directly into the camera.
JL: That’s one of my favourite parts of the film. I’m just a curious person; I always want to know what people think. And so that was directly inspired by one of my favourite documentaries, which almost no one knows about. And I can’t believe no one knows about it, because it was directed by Diane Keaton: Heaven. It’s in my top 10 documentaries of all time. The entire film is just Diane asking people these questions: What happens after we die? What does heaven look like? What’s the meaning of life? You know? And it’s intercut with footage from Hollywood movies that depict heaven, like mostly movies from the ’30s and ’40s. And it’s brilliant. And for some reason it was critically destroyed when it came out, so it just vanished. But I don’t know why. So I just thought it was such an interesting way to show how people wrestle with these kinds of ideas. And, not to get too specific, but I think the whole concept of religion starts when a child asks themselves the question, What happens after you die? That’s kind of the first introduction of thinking about beyond life. And so I just wanted to ground the story in the kinds of thoughts that lead to spirituality and religion and maybe joining a church to try to make sense of life. And I always knew that asking a kid those questions was going to get me the best answers.
The film also makes us really question ourselves and be more critical about the things we believe in. And obviously that applies to everything that's going on in the world—we don’t need to talk about Trump, or Abercrombie & Fitch, and all the news stories that are coming out. But for you, do you feel like you’ve come to any answers through making this film about how we avoid this merry-go-round?
JL: Look, the film is definitely a warning and a plea for people to think critically. It was very important to Nori and I that the film end with three previous devotees sitting together and just talking critically about the leadership of the movement and the founder. And that really is like sacrilege in that community, and we knew they wouldn’t be happy about it. We didn’t say the name of Trump in the documentary, but the documentary is totally about Trump. But Trump is a symptom, not a cause, right? It’s about this human desire to surrender your responsibility as a person. This is the appeal of cults and of religions and of movements and of groups. Being an individual is hard, you know? And the weight of responsibility, of having to think critically and question things—it’s tough. It’s so much easier to just say ‘Tell me what to do, tell me what to think’, ‘I want to follow you.’ And I do that too—but for me, it’s Billy Wilder and Ingmar Bergman, and it’s Spike Lee, right? Those are my guys. Like, ‘Tell me how to make a film. Okay, that’s how you do it. Let’s do it.’ And so I should think critically about that too. And that’s 100-percent valid, because I also worship Roman Polanski, and I need to start thinking critically about that, too. So I think this is something that applies to everyone, not just people in religion. 
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