Personally I don't understand some of the comments here. The scene where (spoiler!) the Dalai Lama absorbs the horrific news that some Chinese soldiers made children kill their own parents, though it lasts, only seconds. When I say absorbs, I mean it: the news goes through him like a knife in the guts, and through any attentive viewer's guts also. I fail to see how anyone can say "it never comes close to the emotional heights", there or in the "sky funeral" where his father is fed to the vultures. To call this "empty symbolism, and some wooden acting" is just to abhor Buddhist teaching itself, which emphasize calm and ritual to remain calm (only). "How could something so interesting at the same time create such ennui?" Easy. Because it's putting you in that state.
I agree that "like "Baraka" and "Koyaanisqatsi", the devices of the film maker are important as the script" and that the film is "not attempting to glorify the life of an extraordinary man but instead presents a balanced look at a complex country and a complex religion. Instead of making the Dalai Lhama out to be a saint he presents him as the humble but very human man he is, caught up in the struggle for his country and his religious freedom from the Chinese in the only way that his principles and religion will allow." and that "this movie is not just about one man, but about the pain of all mankind and the way to transcend the pain and sin of ours in a very buddhist direction." To say that "at its heart it is also a cold, detached and distanced view" may be a compliment. The very hot story requires a very cool treatment.
Is it "passionless"? I doubt it. It does "give the audience a cultural experience- to try to convey a religious state of mind through the use of the camera and the sound track. To get us in to the Buddhist mental state it must sacrifice in the script and drama departments" if by those one means action and conflict. The main conflict is the political one, and it is played out in stages, especially the sequence of generals starting off with reasonable explanations of why the Communists had to rise, ending up with blank repeated orders - each lower in rank. Yes it had the "best cinematography and best music", Phillip Glass outdid himself and he clearly understood the passion that lives within Buddhism. If you feel this film is passionless, close your eyes a while. Or get the soundtrack itself and play it in the dark. Really.
I agree that "Kundun" is "up there with the screen's greatest biographies (Lawrence of Arabia, Ghandi, Out of Africa)" but since it is about a great Buddhist it would do a disservice not to "separate itself from the emotion, from the humanity". If it "ends up failing miserably to convey the horror experienced by the Tibetan people", fine. If someone was "as emotionally involved in this film as I would have been in a PBS documentary on insects", then, consider, having compassion for insects, as the boy who will become the Dalai Lama demonstrates in one of the most compelling early scenes. "Kundun, in my opinion, needs to be viewed as a cinematic (audio-visual) exploration of the Tibetan spirituality and the cycles of existence - birth, death, reincarnation".
It is no contradiction to see it as "a huge, beautifully and intricately decorated gift box which, when I opened it, proved to be empty. "But your Box is the gift-- isn't it beautiful?" Well sure it is... but you could have put SOMETHING inside it." Why? Religion is itself the box.
I agree that "in twenty years time Kundun will be recognised as one of the top ten films ever produced in motion picture history". I empathize with the fellow "watching this movie hours after finding my girlfriend with her new man and being the last to know the relationship was over,I completely broke down almost on every chapter" - ah, exactly the point. I saw it with a woman I had asked to marry me several times (she said no), her son who was about ten, and a good friend of ours who had been in jail in India and meditated with the Dalai Lama when he visited. I think it was the last significant thing I did with these three people. I can no longer separate my love for them from my love for this film. I think I learned its lesson. Attachment is not the point of living well.
The beautifully wrapped box will always be empty - and that is wonderful.
I agree that "like "Baraka" and "Koyaanisqatsi", the devices of the film maker are important as the script" and that the film is "not attempting to glorify the life of an extraordinary man but instead presents a balanced look at a complex country and a complex religion. Instead of making the Dalai Lhama out to be a saint he presents him as the humble but very human man he is, caught up in the struggle for his country and his religious freedom from the Chinese in the only way that his principles and religion will allow." and that "this movie is not just about one man, but about the pain of all mankind and the way to transcend the pain and sin of ours in a very buddhist direction." To say that "at its heart it is also a cold, detached and distanced view" may be a compliment. The very hot story requires a very cool treatment.
Is it "passionless"? I doubt it. It does "give the audience a cultural experience- to try to convey a religious state of mind through the use of the camera and the sound track. To get us in to the Buddhist mental state it must sacrifice in the script and drama departments" if by those one means action and conflict. The main conflict is the political one, and it is played out in stages, especially the sequence of generals starting off with reasonable explanations of why the Communists had to rise, ending up with blank repeated orders - each lower in rank. Yes it had the "best cinematography and best music", Phillip Glass outdid himself and he clearly understood the passion that lives within Buddhism. If you feel this film is passionless, close your eyes a while. Or get the soundtrack itself and play it in the dark. Really.
I agree that "Kundun" is "up there with the screen's greatest biographies (Lawrence of Arabia, Ghandi, Out of Africa)" but since it is about a great Buddhist it would do a disservice not to "separate itself from the emotion, from the humanity". If it "ends up failing miserably to convey the horror experienced by the Tibetan people", fine. If someone was "as emotionally involved in this film as I would have been in a PBS documentary on insects", then, consider, having compassion for insects, as the boy who will become the Dalai Lama demonstrates in one of the most compelling early scenes. "Kundun, in my opinion, needs to be viewed as a cinematic (audio-visual) exploration of the Tibetan spirituality and the cycles of existence - birth, death, reincarnation".
It is no contradiction to see it as "a huge, beautifully and intricately decorated gift box which, when I opened it, proved to be empty. "But your Box is the gift-- isn't it beautiful?" Well sure it is... but you could have put SOMETHING inside it." Why? Religion is itself the box.
I agree that "in twenty years time Kundun will be recognised as one of the top ten films ever produced in motion picture history". I empathize with the fellow "watching this movie hours after finding my girlfriend with her new man and being the last to know the relationship was over,I completely broke down almost on every chapter" - ah, exactly the point. I saw it with a woman I had asked to marry me several times (she said no), her son who was about ten, and a good friend of ours who had been in jail in India and meditated with the Dalai Lama when he visited. I think it was the last significant thing I did with these three people. I can no longer separate my love for them from my love for this film. I think I learned its lesson. Attachment is not the point of living well.
The beautifully wrapped box will always be empty - and that is wonderful.