Commune channels a bygone era of drop-outs living an American dream on the Free Love frontier. This is the happy alternative to the apocalyptic California sub-cultures of Charles Manson and the Rev. Jim Jones.

Watching Jonathan Berman's affectionate documentary, Commune, about the influential establishment in Siskiyou County, brought to mind the recent documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple.

Commune gets at the central, seductive paradoxes inherent in so much counterculture belief and practice.

You can likely never quite escape human emotions and public perceptions. Like when commune buddies become lovers who become partners. Like when the police raid your land and seize marijuana only for it to actually be a tomato plant.