Movie: Samsara
Year: 2001
Director: Nalin Pan
Language: Tibetan
Synopsis: Tashi has been raised as a Buddhist monk and is on his way to become a monk of repute. When he gets erotic phantasms as an adolescent, his master tries to get his mind away from his desires. On one of his trips to the village he dreams of the host Pema coming to her. Once he is told his hottest dream was real, Tashi decides to leave the monastery and marries Pema, who was actually engaged with local stone-mason Jamayang. The ex-lama soon becomes a rich land-owner himself, and makes a killing from his harvest by bringing it to the city instead of selling at half price to the local merchant Dewa. He raises a bright son, Karma. Life continues and he gets more and more engrossed in worldly matters till one day he commits infidelity, that day forces Tashi to reconsider his life.
My own take: The tagline of the movie is "Satisfying one thousand desires or conquering just one...". In many ways the enigma of the movie is in the way it would use the zen way to unfold the story. The movie starts with a kaon on how to make a drop of water infinite. And as the movie progresses the answer emerges. Time and again the beauty of the movie is in the dialogues which are unspoken and hints which are subtle. Those familiar with concepts of Hindu Mythology will find this movie more like a story told on what is "Maya". Definitely a movie for those who like a certain amount of spiritual involvement yet haven't taken the plunge to depths of spiritual discussions. The locales are breathtaking.
Nice! :)
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