Gambling, Gods & LSD (3.5 out of 4)

Directed by Peter Mettler.

Canadian filmmaker Peter Mettler seems to have always had a fascination about how physical elements affect human emotions. In the three-hour-long Gambling, Gods & LSD, he extends this preoccupation to transcendental manifestation - a complicated term for getting high.
This languorous, gorgeously shot and fascinating opus sees the filmmaker travel from Toronto to Las Vegas and to his current hometown in Switzerland, and finally to India as he uncovers the human need to reach a higher state of conscience.
The film begins with a riverside chat with junkie poet John Paul Young, followed by a bizarre stopover at Toronto Pearson Airport where the members of the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship are holding a mass. We then head down through Death Valley into Las Vegas where the most outrageous personages express their own interpretations of transcendence - including a guy who makes very weird sex toys.
Mettler then takes his camera through Switzerland where he documents the connection between the country's chemical advances and its growing street life; ending with a unique perspective of how India's technological growth is affecting its spiritual make-up.
Gambling, Gods & LSD may prove at tad too slow for the impatient viewer, but the experience of sitting through the stunning imagery, the beautiful music and some humourous episodes makes it certainly worthwhile.

Publication Date: 2003-02-09
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2337