There is a particular feeling that is both satisfying and unsettling when the reality of a legend fails to deviate from the fantasy. "The Source Family," the subject of a documentary by Maria Demopoulos and Jodi Wille opening tomorrow at the IFC Center, is such a pure expression of an archetypal 1970s psychedelic subculture that it feels like an ornate and elaborate invention. More than 100 young men and women belonged to this utopian commune, which was led by a self-made spiritual leader who called himself Father Yod. By the time of his death he had 13 wives and was believed, by his followers, to be God. Some of the sense of unreality comes from how suited to fame he appears to have been. Father Yod drove a Rolls-Royce, lived in a mansion with his startlingly young and beautiful disciples, and fronted their psych-rock band Ya Ho Wha 13. His restaurant, the Source, was at the center of a characteristically Southern Californian scene interested in health food, Eastern religious practice, music and sexual and psychedelic experimentation. The real subject and substance of the movie is the remarkable archival material recorded and maintained by Isis Aquarian. One of Father Yod's wives, she was appointed "keeper of the tribe," and as the family's official documentarian she photographed, made sound recordings and shot home movies of everything that happened, from public performances to wildly personal events. The detail of this view of the past afforded to us is, at times, disconcertingly intimate. This account doesn't shy away from the painful results of Father Yod's susceptibility to power. The young women, whose sexual and romantic configurations he controlled, and the suffering of Robin - his original Source Family wife - disallow any untempered admiration. The filmmakers decline to judge or defend him, and instead what we are left with is the sheer scale of fearlessness and desire with which he appears to have lived his life. "The Source Family" opens on May 1 at the IFC Center in New York (323 Avenue of the Americas). At the 7:35 p.m. showing, the filmmakers Jodi Wille and Maria Demopoulos, along with the former Source Family members Isis Aquarian and Electricity Aquarian, will be present to answer questions.