Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox

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Audience Member There's something that is all at once amusing, disturbing, inspiring, and tragic about Dr. Bronner's story. I use his soaps a lot and the movie helped me understand the mysterious, bizarre labels. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Audience Member Passable doc with a few very extraordinary moments. Basically, any moment when Ralph Bronner is just talking to strangers. I could watch a whole documentary of just that. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Audience Member Him I would believe if he walked into my office and said he was bipolar or schizoaffective. Interesting portrait of an interesting guy. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Audience Member What an interesting story! I'm working on a class advertising campaign for this product so we watched this for research. Great to know there are companies out there like this that exist and have flourished! Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Audience Member A real schizophrenic movie about the guy behind Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap and his wacky family. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/16/23 Full Review Audience Member DR BRONNER'S MAGIC SOAPBOX is a documentary on the life and thought of Emmanuel Bronner (1908-1997), the German immigrant who made the soap popular with 1960s counter-culture and now alternative people everywhere. Dr. Bronner infamously covered his soap labels with rambling statements in tiny print, preaching the unity of mankind in an "all-one-god religion". This is an individual with a fascinating story, well worth a documentary film. He left Germany before the Holocaust (in which his parents perished), worked as a chemist before being hospitalized in Elgin Asylum, and escaped to California to set up the now-famous soap brand. In the 1940s, he had two sons which grew up in foster care, since their father considered his spiritual calling much more important than a couple of children. Jim and Ralph eventually reconciled with their father and inherited the company. Filmmaker Sara Lamm has assembled video footage of Dr. Bronner and carried out interviews with his employees and acquaintances, as well as everyday Americans who love his soap. She also follows Ralph (the current owner of the company) as he travels the country, telling stories about his father and turning people on to Dr. Bronner's Soap. While other interviews focus on Dr. Bronner's history of mental illness, Ralph speaks of his father as an eccentric and perennial non-comformist. Ralph has also tried to emulate his father's sense of idealism, albeit not his religious ideals, and some attention is given to his philantrophic endeavours. It is heartwarming that this head of a multi-million dollar business is so ready to help those he encounters, but I feel that there's too much attention on Ralph's kindness to people in the street, and insufficient attention to the structure of the company. Ralph mentions in passing that it's something of a cooperative endeavour, but we don't really get details. Still, except for that quibble, I enjoyed this film greatly. It certainly puts the bizarre labels on the bottles into perspective, and makes you muse on the thin line between incapacitating madness and an eccentricity that still spurs a man on to great things. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox

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