A documentary by Thomas Lennon. In multiple languages, with English subtitles. Rating unavailable

It’s initially hard to find the hand of writer-director Thomas Lennon in Sacred, a globetrotting effort that takes us to roughly 40 different places on the planet. Still, there is a striking visual consistency and tonal calm to this quick look at religious ritual in daily life, actually shot by as many different teams, under Lennon’s presumed guidance.

What comes across is a heartfelt and aesthetically pleasing tour of ancient practices that have somehow survived the onslaught of modernity. Recent events have told us that “faith” is not always helpful in the face of complex realities, and can lead to destruction. But the movie is not called Scared; it doesn’t spend any time with the fundamentalism associated with war, terrorism, or “bathroom bills”. There is some religious-based gendering, with men doing all the dancing at Hasidic parties and a young Indian girl not allowed to talk to a male neighbour until she’s 18. (Or maybe that’s just a Dad Thing.)

Even here, among subjects identified only by first names, there’s an overemphasis on male storytellers, and a preponderance of Christianity in the African segments, racked by poverty and death from Ebola. Inmates at the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana appear uplifted by their jailhouse conversions, but there’s a sense throughout that scriptural content is secondary, at best, to the community that comes from belonging to any set of clean-living believers in, well, something.

During visits to places as varied as Egypt, Japan, the Philippines, and New York City (there’s even a brief Vancouver sequence, helmed by our own Julia Kwan), the verities of life, death, and in between are looked at. Supported by a fine score that doesn’t underline any particular cultures at the expense of others, we find images of marriage, grieving, and even the odd bris. But no tantric sex. Sorry. This points to the movie’s biggest deficit. It’s interested only in universal patterns of behaviour, not spiritual yearning. Rites and rituals are on display, but God remains, as ever, elusive to a fault.