Tibet: A Buddhist Trilogy
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Part I: The Dalai Lama, The Nonasteries and the People
Filmed in the Dalai Lama’s residence in Dharamsala, North India, and in the re-built Sera Monastery, the second largest monastery of the old Tibet, this opening part of the Trilogy observes the Dalai Lama in his dual role as Head of State and spiritual teacher. In an elegant cinematic style, at one with its subject, the film interweaves this personal portrait with an intimately observed exploration of the ways in which the inner knowledge of Tibetan Buddhist culture is developed in the monasteries, through vigorous debate and solitary meditation, and communicated in to the lay community.
Part II: Radiating the Fruit of Truth With extraordinary authenticity Part II of the Trilogy journeys deep into the mystical inner world of monastic life. Set in the ancient village of Boudha, Nepal and the isolated mountain caves of the yogis, the film follows the lamas of the Phulwary Sakya Monastery through their contemplative retreats, the building of an intricate cosmogram, and the performance of an ancient protective ritual known as ‘A Beautiful Ornament’. Through the ritual invocation of the female deity Tara, the malevolent forces that might bring harm to the society are invited and magically transformed. With a subtitled commentary based on the teachings of the great 20th century master Dudjom Rinpoche, the essence of tantric Buddhism is powerfully revealed.
Part Three: The Fields of the Senses Set in the majestic mountain landscape of Ladakh, Part III is a meditation on impermanence and the relationship between the mind, body and environment. It follows the monks and farmers through a day, ending with an unflinching depiction of the monastery's moving ritual response to a death in the community. As in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the departed is guided through the dream-like intermediate state between death and birth.[1]
[edit] View from Nowhere
[edit] Other Views from Nowhere
Tibet: A Buddhist Trilogy,
the film and its subject are as
one. The four-hour, three-part
film explores Tibetan culture in exile, not so much to explain it as simply to present it. Specifically, it wants to capture a spiritual experience, and in this it fails and succeeds in almost equal measure. Much of what we see is hypnotic; much is merely boring. The film opens today at the Vandam Theater.
The first part of the film, A Prophecy, is the most comprehensible. It visits the Dalai Lama and his followers in India, where they have built a social structure based on Tibetan Buddhism, but tempered, it seems, by democratic socialism.
Thus, we see Indian Tibetans in communes, sharing in cooperative ventures - carpet making, for one. When the Dalai Lama addresses them, he offers gentle homilies, mixing politics and morality. The future will lead to the rule of the masses, to a social democracy, he says. When we look at it from this point of view, the invasion of Tibet has been something good for the Tibetans - providing we can follow the right path for the future.
The second part, The Fields of the Senses, brings us Tibetan farmers and monks in a remote village in northern India. The farmers rake the fields rhythmically. The monks chant and pray. Subtitles give us literal interpretations - complicated descriptions of the inconceivable mansion, of mandalas that blend into the lotus and of unequaled sublime enlightment. The British film maker Graham Coleman is giving us Tibetan Buddhism on its own terms. A spiritual experience, however, does not necessarily translate into film images.
The most compelling and indeed most comprehensible sequence here is of a ritual cremation. Tibetan Buddhism may preach a reverence for life, but the afterlife seems infinitely more real. At the cremation, monks pray for and advise the departing spirit.
The third and longest part of the film, Radiating the Fruit of Truth, shows us a single ritual ceremony. How a filmgoer reacts to this will be commensurate with how much interest in Tibetan Buddhism the earlier parts of the film have aroused. Tibet: A Buddhist Trilogy is scheduled to run through June 21.
Ritual and Prayer TIBET: A BUDDHIST TRILOGY, written (in Tibetan with English subtitles) and directed by Grant Coleman; produced and photographed by David Laselles; photography by Michael Warr; edited by Pip Heywood; a production of Thread Cross Films. At the Van Dam Theater, 15 Van Dam Street. Running time: 231 minutes. This film has no rating.[2]
