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People who believe in dowsing for water and those who think it's foolishness say the documentary "Divining Mom" proves their point.

That's a testament to the balance George Kachadorian brought to the project.

His parents, who star in the film, sit on opposite points of this particular compass.

His mother, Lea, a practicing water witch, or dowser, uses her forked divining rods to find wells for her Vermont neighbors. His father, Jim, a civil engineer, looks askance at the practice, taking a scientific and materialist view.

The documentary, which I saw at the Durham Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in April 2003, gives each side a balanced presentation, Kachadorian told CarolinasBest, "because I couldn't take one side or the other without getting in trouble with one parent or the other."

Kachadorian's wife and co-producer Courtney Bent suggested making this conflict the subject of a film. George says in an interview with the Vermont Standard that after many false starts, he finally realized, "What's most interesting is to watch both sides of the debate interact in the marriage. You can't take any debate out of the human context."

While viewers must reach their own conclusions after watching "Divining Mom," the film gives each point of view full expression. The filmmakers talk with a handful of the estimated 20,000 dowsers who practice in the United States and follow Lea on a job as she dowses for a well. The results offer a bit of suspense that is not resolved until the film's final moments.

A Hunger for Reality

"Divining Mom" was one of several very personal films at the Durham Full Frame festival suggesting that nonfiction films will soon rival Hollywood's entertainment fare in sophistication.

Even though this is Kachadorian's first feature, it is a thoroughly professional effort. It certainly entertained me as much as most recent Hollywood products.

I confess, too, that having spent much of my life caught in this same intellectual merry-go-round of scientific materialism vs. magic, religion and the occult, this film spoke rather directly to me emotionally. Even though Kachadorian's father expresses my point of view in this film, often to consternation visible in his mother's expressive face, neither of us feel entirely comfortable with the idea that science has all the answers.

The real power of the film is in the scenes — uncomfortable when they thrust you into someone else's family drama — showing his parents arguing their respective points of view. Video that looks like film (stop down to get rid of video glare, advises Kachadorian) brings a new intimacy and realism to the documentary.

People are hungry for realistic entertainment, as the popularity of so-called reality programming on TV demonstrates.

Films such as "Divining Mom" show up TV's reality shows for the contrived and artificial nonsense they are.

Following the documentary screening at the Full Frame Festival, I spoke to both Kachadorian's parents. I mentioned the one bit of scientific evidence cited in favor of dowsing in the film, that some people seem able to sense buried water flow through a sense similar to that magnetic sixth sense that guides migrating birds and probably other animals.

Jim, who makes no secret in the film of his disdain for his wife's dowsing, said, "I like to do crossword puzzles. I'll sit down and do everything I can and leave the rest unfinished. I'll go do something else without consciously thinking about it and come back later and I can finish it. What's that about?"

Personally, I know we have physical senses we seldom pay much attention to. Years ago I practiced a type of stage magic called mentalism. One trick is called "contact mind-reading," in which I take the wrist of a volunteer and have them lead me to a hidden object by thinking directions. It works, much as a lead does in dancing, only more subtle. Every thought has a muscular reaction you can read if you tune to it. That's how Ginger Rogers followed Fred Astaire upside down and backwards...and how Kreskin the mentalist did one of his most impressive tricks.

My moment of agreement

Were I to pick a moment in "Divining Mom" that most expresses my point of view, it is when James "The Amazing" Randi, a McArthur Fellow, practicing magician, and member of the highly respected committee to investigate the paranormal says, "There is nothing there."

I met Randi years ago in a magic shoppe in New York City once owned by Harry Houdini himself, the first occult demystifier. He firmly believes people who claim to practice real magic of any sort are conscious frauds or self-deluded.

Randi and scientists tested a large group of volunteer dowsers who failed to do better than chance in finding water running through buried hoses.

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