Swiss-Canadian filmmaker Peter Mettler works at the experimental end of cinema's spectrum, which means that although Gambling, Gods and LSD has been nominated for a Genie award for documentary, it defies easy categorization. It is like a series of short films using different cinematic styles, ranging from travelogue to music video, from video art to video essay.

Mettler stated that he wanted to show the human quest for transcendence and meaning in his film. If the final work lacks a clear synthesis this was a gamble that Mettler was prepared to take. His aim was to let his camera "intuit" what was going on around him, rather than impose a vision of the world, as he travels from Toronto airport to the casinos of Las Vegas to mist-drenched Alpine outposts in Switzerland to religious ceremonies in India.

He wanted to stop, stare and listen with what he calls the "non-judgemental openness" of a child. He is tireless in his search for different ways of viewing, employing myriad artistic devices and at one point, it appears, filming from a moving boat with the camera on its side.

The unashamedly unconventional approach pays off frequently with arrestingly beautiful imagery and richly textured soundscapes. He finds an almost natural order in industry (or is it an industrial order in nature?) through his meditative, slow-mo sequences of air traffic controllers at work in Toronto or crumpled electricity pylons as they lean against the sky like fatigued giants. His camera taps the ecstasy of evangelists in Toronto's airport church and projects the divine into the tears of a Bollywood starlet. At his most exhibitionist, the screen becomes awash in a torrent of images, hundreds in seconds, piled layer upon layer. At another point, during an exuberant rave sequence, the whole screen becomes a pulsating strobe light.

At times, the film takes a more sensationalist tone, with interviews with the Las Vegas inventor of a sexual pleasure machine and reformed drug users talking about shooting up. Some sequences seem too drawn out and unnecessary, but you can forgive Mettler taking his time - the film is a challenging three hours long - because again and again he shows that good things come to those that wait.