I caught 'Indian Summer' at the first Socially Relevant Film Festival in NYC. It's directed by a Brit, Simon Brook, but it's filmed in French on location in both France and India. The film stars Nella Banfi, a breast cancer patient, who decides to explore alternative cancer therapies in India, eschewing more traditional routes in her native France.
After undergoing treatments by Ayurvedic practitioners in India for three years, and returning to France cancer free, she looks up a leading oncologist, Dr. Thomas Tursz, who had scoffed at her decision to try Ayurvedic medicine prior to going to India, and challenges him to meet the doctors who treated her there.
Tursz, with great skepticism, agrees to accompany Nella, and they're off on a journey to explore the world of Ayurvedic medicine. They first meet with a former engineer, now a monk, who informs Dr. Tursz that Ayurvedic medicine differs from Western (Allopathic) medicine, in that practitioners there attempt to treat people holistically, not simply focusing on symptoms.
Tursz and Nella visit a rural factory where herbs and medicinal plants are prepared and later at a more modern clinic where various natural preparations are manufactured and rigorously tested. At the clinic, a woman from England sings the praises of Ayurvedic treatments which cured her of a painful case of Sepsis, following traditional cancer treatments.
The Ayurvedic approach also extends to healing the body using oils directly applied on the body via massage. One surprising aspect of the treatments is that in one case, a leech is applied to a man's leg to draw blood.
The most interesting aspect of the film is not so much the exploration of the Ayurvedic approach but Dr. Tursz's reaction to it. In one respect it's admirable that Tursz is open-minded enough to come and take a look at the alternative approach. Often he's heard praising the spiritual approach which is missing in western medicine; at one juncture he actually concedes that some traditional practitioners are 'arrogant'. Nonethless, Tursz makes it clear that Ayurvedic practitioners would be seriously remiss if they failed to use the traditional system initially and only utilize Ayurvedic Medicine as a complementary approach.
Dr. Tursz doesn't seem like he would be willing to design experiments where each system is tested as a separate entity. This is borne out at film's end, when Nella accuses him (affectionately), that he hasn't changed a bit and in effect is only paying lip service to the Ayurvedic methodology.
While westerners who have gone for cancer treatments in India actually view treatment as an 'alternative' approach, the Indian practitioners view Ayurvedic medicine as mainly 'preventative'. Hence, they don't seem to object when Dr. Tursz suggests that it would be a mistake to fail to include traditional treatments in conjunction with their own treatments.
From my point of view, Nella's choice to investigate and ultimately undergo Ayurvedic treatments was the right one. After all, everyone knows that the traditional treatments utilizing chemotherapy by western oncologists always leads to damaging side effects to the human body and often to the creation of iatrogenic disorders.
What the documentary fails to do is question the efficacy of the Ayurvedic treatment for cancer in more detail. There needed to be more examples of both success and failure in the Ayuvedic treatment of cancer so that people can decide for themselves whether ultimately this is the route they want to go. Nonetheless, 'Indian Summer' has great value in making people aware that there are alternatives out there for treatment of serious diseases such as cancer and there are courageous people such as Nella, who are able to think for themselves and not be intimidated by orthodox practitioners, who often insist that the axiom, 'my way or the highway', is the only one to follow.
After undergoing treatments by Ayurvedic practitioners in India for three years, and returning to France cancer free, she looks up a leading oncologist, Dr. Thomas Tursz, who had scoffed at her decision to try Ayurvedic medicine prior to going to India, and challenges him to meet the doctors who treated her there.
Tursz, with great skepticism, agrees to accompany Nella, and they're off on a journey to explore the world of Ayurvedic medicine. They first meet with a former engineer, now a monk, who informs Dr. Tursz that Ayurvedic medicine differs from Western (Allopathic) medicine, in that practitioners there attempt to treat people holistically, not simply focusing on symptoms.
Tursz and Nella visit a rural factory where herbs and medicinal plants are prepared and later at a more modern clinic where various natural preparations are manufactured and rigorously tested. At the clinic, a woman from England sings the praises of Ayurvedic treatments which cured her of a painful case of Sepsis, following traditional cancer treatments.
The Ayurvedic approach also extends to healing the body using oils directly applied on the body via massage. One surprising aspect of the treatments is that in one case, a leech is applied to a man's leg to draw blood.
The most interesting aspect of the film is not so much the exploration of the Ayurvedic approach but Dr. Tursz's reaction to it. In one respect it's admirable that Tursz is open-minded enough to come and take a look at the alternative approach. Often he's heard praising the spiritual approach which is missing in western medicine; at one juncture he actually concedes that some traditional practitioners are 'arrogant'. Nonethless, Tursz makes it clear that Ayurvedic practitioners would be seriously remiss if they failed to use the traditional system initially and only utilize Ayurvedic Medicine as a complementary approach.
Dr. Tursz doesn't seem like he would be willing to design experiments where each system is tested as a separate entity. This is borne out at film's end, when Nella accuses him (affectionately), that he hasn't changed a bit and in effect is only paying lip service to the Ayurvedic methodology.
While westerners who have gone for cancer treatments in India actually view treatment as an 'alternative' approach, the Indian practitioners view Ayurvedic medicine as mainly 'preventative'. Hence, they don't seem to object when Dr. Tursz suggests that it would be a mistake to fail to include traditional treatments in conjunction with their own treatments.
From my point of view, Nella's choice to investigate and ultimately undergo Ayurvedic treatments was the right one. After all, everyone knows that the traditional treatments utilizing chemotherapy by western oncologists always leads to damaging side effects to the human body and often to the creation of iatrogenic disorders.
What the documentary fails to do is question the efficacy of the Ayurvedic treatment for cancer in more detail. There needed to be more examples of both success and failure in the Ayuvedic treatment of cancer so that people can decide for themselves whether ultimately this is the route they want to go. Nonetheless, 'Indian Summer' has great value in making people aware that there are alternatives out there for treatment of serious diseases such as cancer and there are courageous people such as Nella, who are able to think for themselves and not be intimidated by orthodox practitioners, who often insist that the axiom, 'my way or the highway', is the only one to follow.
