What is it about some people that makes them able to persuade others to follow them blindly? And what makes some people suspend their own judgement and free will in favor of pleasing such a leader? The question of obedience to authority has been the subject of many studies (Stanley Milgram’s being the most prominent and oft-cited), as well as films like The Lives of Others. A new Netflix documentary, Raël: the Alien Prophet, attempts to explore these questions, but suffers greatly from an awkward adherence to Netflix’s apparent insistence that all documentaries must resemble a Dateline or 48 Hours episode.
The documentary is a French production that tells the story of Claude Vorilhon, a Frenchman known to the world as Raël, leader of what he deems to be a religion named, as one might expect, after himself.
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