Samsara runs over two and a half hours, and arguably, it needs every minute. The story is minimal, what comes out of it is what make it worth.
A young Lama (Tashi), after a three years, three months and three days meditation secluded in a cave, is returned to this monastery and ordered as a higher level monk. However, he begins to feel some sexual awareness precipitated for a brief contact with a young woman and hesitates about the life he had chosen. Considering that Buddha began his spiritual journey at 29 (Tashi is in his early twenties), he leaves the monastery and starts a normal agriculture life in the rural Himalayas. He of course will discover all the temptations, deceptions and frustrations of the world he never knew. And he will be corrupted too.
This is not a commercial occidental movie, so even if the story seems predictable, nothing terribly dramatic or convulsed happens. The world we are seeing is a simple one. People could cheat on each others, but the value of life is high, as also is the value of love and the traditions. Tashi will try to change things but he will be the one changing. If changes are for good of evil, is for the viewer to decide.
This is not a self discovery trip either (at least for Tashi). We are the one who discover that not world is absolutely better than the other, but the human being is capable of destroying everything with his own selfishness, particularly the ones who loves.
There is not a moralizing tale here, easy answers and judgments are avoided but one. Tashi's wife final monologue, questioning the women's part in history and in the religion is as valid to Buddhism as to any other religion I know). That was an unexpected and essential surprise, creating the perfect end for an almost perfect movie.
A young Lama (Tashi), after a three years, three months and three days meditation secluded in a cave, is returned to this monastery and ordered as a higher level monk. However, he begins to feel some sexual awareness precipitated for a brief contact with a young woman and hesitates about the life he had chosen. Considering that Buddha began his spiritual journey at 29 (Tashi is in his early twenties), he leaves the monastery and starts a normal agriculture life in the rural Himalayas. He of course will discover all the temptations, deceptions and frustrations of the world he never knew. And he will be corrupted too.
This is not a commercial occidental movie, so even if the story seems predictable, nothing terribly dramatic or convulsed happens. The world we are seeing is a simple one. People could cheat on each others, but the value of life is high, as also is the value of love and the traditions. Tashi will try to change things but he will be the one changing. If changes are for good of evil, is for the viewer to decide.
This is not a self discovery trip either (at least for Tashi). We are the one who discover that not world is absolutely better than the other, but the human being is capable of destroying everything with his own selfishness, particularly the ones who loves.
There is not a moralizing tale here, easy answers and judgments are avoided but one. Tashi's wife final monologue, questioning the women's part in history and in the religion is as valid to Buddhism as to any other religion I know). That was an unexpected and essential surprise, creating the perfect end for an almost perfect movie.