Review of Chappaqua

Chappaqua (1966)
7/10
Paradoxical audio-visual feast!
6 May 2020
In this underground classic of the 60's, Conrad Rooks's semi-autobiographical account of a man who travels to France to undergo a drug-withdrawal cure and captures his journey from sickness to health, anguish to well-being. He aligns with the counterculture figures such as Allen Ginsberg (playing Messiah), William Burroughs (as "Opium Jones"), Jean-Louis Barrault (as "Dr. Benoit"), Moondog (as "The Prophet"), and Ornette Coleman (as a Peyote eater).

It's a Paradoxical audio-visual film with intoxicating dance scenes (which involves a druid-like character grooving at the Stonehenge) and ethereal visions of transcendental beauty (gorgeous non-professional actress Paula Pritchett, credited as Water Woman), all to the hypnotic score by the Fug and the Hindustani virtuoso Ravi Shankar (in the role of the Sun God). The movie is conventionally constructed with a beginning, middle, and end.
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