Netflix Review: Wild Wild Country

Indian Sex Cult Meets Conservative Christian Rural America!

This is the tagline attached to many of the reviews that I have read of the recent Netflix documentary series Wild Wild Country . I think that this simplistic assessment, however appealing as a headline, does a disservice to the complexities of the story told by this documentary. For anyone with an interest in politics, religion, spiritually or just a good story, Wild Wild Country provides compelling viewing.

This six-part Netflix documentary series tells the story of the Rajneeshi movement headed by controversial spiritual leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, colloquially known as Osho, and his attempts to establish a utopian community in rural Oregon in the early 1980s.

Osho was a prominent spiritual leader in the India in the late 60s and early 70s. His brand of spirituality was based on meditation, free-living and perhaps most of all free love. In his early career Osho was a prominent public speaker in Indian spiritual circles and a vocal critic of Mahatma Gandhi and the brand of socialism that he was spreading through India at the time. By the late 1970s, Osho’s controversial commune was experiencing significant pushback from conservative Hindu Indians. This was the trigger for Osho to seek a new location from which he could base his movement. This is where Wild Wild Country picks up the story, documenting over six episodes the Rajneeshi’s movement to rural Oregon and the conflicts with the locals and US government that followed.

Many parts of this documentary series of fascinating. Not least of these is the scale of the Rajneeshi movement and what they tried to achieve in rural America. Contemporary archival footage from news sources of the time, shows that in the early 80s the Rajneeshi movement, was a significant national news story. Today however very little of this notoriety remains.

At its heart the documentary series tells the story of a group of free loving individuals and their clash with the local community in rural and conservative Wasco County in Oregon, US. The explicit sexuality and materialism of the Rajneeshi movement was anathema to the values of the predominantly Conservative Christian community amongst which they chose to settle. This led to a series of escalations over time that culminated in the largest bioterrorist attack ever committed on US soil, the threat of outright armed conflict between US law enforcement agencies and members of the commune and ultimately, the arrest and imprisonment of many of Osho’s most prominent followers. Osho himself was captured as he attempted to flee the country by aircraft and ultimately deported.

The story itself is predominately told through interviews with key individuals that were present at the height of the conflict. Residents of the small Oregonian town of Antelope that was the epicentre of the conflict tell their stories some 35 years removed from the events. Their version is contrasted with interviews with a number of individuals who held prominent positions within the Rajneeshi movement. Not the least of these is Ma Anand Sheila, who was Osho’s personal secretary and de facto leader of the movement after Osho took a vow of silence in the early 1980s.

Hearing first-hand accounts from both sides of the story is truly fascinating viewing. Of particular interest are those Rajneeshis that to this day remain committed to Osho and his spiritual beliefs, despite in some cases having served prison time as a result of this commitment. This was not a band of ignorant college students brainwashed by a charismatic spiritual leader, but highly educated and intelligent lawyers, doctors, engineers and other professionals who gave up their Western lifestyle to pursue the ideals that Osho’s movement represented. Ma Anand Sheila is a central character both in the story itself, and also in its telling. Sheila made herself available to the producers and is a central figure in the documentary series. To say that she is a fascinating individual is an understatement.

The producers do a masterful job of presenting the material as objectively as possible. Watching Wild Wild Country is somewhat of a rollercoaster, as it is very difficult to choose whose side you are on, and any choice you make is likely to change several times as you move through the story. There are times when you genuinely feel for the local citizens of Antelope and the destruction to their quiet country lifestyle that these events represented. Similarly, it is difficult not to feel some sympathy for the Rajneeshis, who were only looking for freedom to practice their religion free from persecution.

What I found most fascinating about this documentary were the questions that it raised. America was chosen as a destination by Osho and Sheila primarily because of the principles of freedom of religion that form a cornerstone of American society. Upon arrival in the US however they suffered almost immediate resistance from all levels of US government to the lifestyle that they tried to lead. For a country that was founded by a religious minority seeking new lands where they could practice their faith free of the oppression of a tyrannical government, the treatment of this particular spiritual movement raises intriguing questions about how far freedom of religion actually extends.

Counterbalancing this viewpoint however is the genuine empathy you feel for the citizens of Antelope, a small rural community of less than 50 residents, whose lives were turned completely upside down by the arrival of thousands of free loving hippy’s intent on changing the world.

The breadth and depth of the subject matter of this documentary is so large that is difficult to do it justice in one review. One criticism that I have read elsewhere is that the documentary is probably a little bit too long. I would agree with this point. At times it felt like four hours of the television squeezed into six. Beyond this however there is little not to like about this show. The first two episodes are slow to get started, but for those who persevere the series provides outstanding entertainment value.

I give this television series 4 out of 5 stars.