Antelope, a small town of 46 people located in Oregon, lives away from the world. In this deep and conservative America, we are proud of our roots. Even visually attached. A quiet town in the middle of nowhere.
The calmness of the hitherto ordinary slot will be violently awakened by the arrival of an Indian guru, Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh, who calls himself “Osho”. His influential assistant, who answers to the name of Ma Anand Sheela, buys a huge ranch of 25,000 acres called “Big Mud Ranch”, which will be developed and urbanized to become Raineshpuram.
A perfect place to welcome the thousands of followers of his movement, founded in Pune, western India, which offers what he calls “dynamic meditation.” Meditation conferences to uplift and nourish the soul, of course. But not without forgetting his wallet: he was nicknamed “the man with 90 Rolls-Royces”, and his fortune, after his death, will be estimated at 1 billion dollars. Spiritual food has its limits…
It is all one. For Westerners seeking spiritual renewal and taking in the guru’s speeches, Big Muddy Ranch became the promised land. Thus, the place will have a population of up to 30,000 and will be massively developed, hosting a supermarket, a bank, a pizzeria and even an armed guard dressed in red…
The hippie installation in Rajneshpuram is clearly frowned upon by the residents of Antelope and the region’s neighbors, who have no intention of letting it go…from tensions to confrontations, culminating in massive immigration fraud and even a bioterrorist attack. Ma Anand Sheela, the guru’s powerful right-hand man, would surely be suspected of that More than 750 people were poisoned by salmonella. It would also officially be the first bioterrorist attack in history in the United States.
Wild Wild Country’s producers and directors, Jay and Mark Duplass, were notably the writers behind Togetherness and the haunting documentary series Les Génies du mal. Coming to Netflix, it tells the story of Brian Wells, a pizza delivery man who robbed a bank in 2003 with a bomb strapped to his neck.
consists of six episodes, Wild wild country shows a very impressive investigative work carried out over a period of four years. Because the incident, which was widely reported by local and national media at the time, produced an incredible amount of video archive material (more than 300 hours of rush!), especially from journalists who were authorized to go through the ranch to collect the words of the followers of the movement.
Between witnesses and actors of the time, repentant or still active militants of the sect, the authors very cleverly juxtapose points of view, archival images to discover an absolutely fascinating and stunning result on Netflix.
Source: allocine
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
