director
Martin Scorsese
screenwriter
Melissa Mathison
producer
Barbara De Fina
cinematographer
Roger Deakins
music
Philip Glass
editor
Thelma Schoonmaker
cast
Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong (Dalai Lama)
Gyurme Tethong (Dalai Lama at 10)
Tulku Jamyang Kunga Tenzin (Dalai Lama at 5)
Tenzin Yeshi Paichang (Dalai Lama at 2)
Tencho Gyalpo (Mother)
Tsewang Migyur Khangsar (Father)
Geshi Yeshi Gyatso (Lama of Sera)
Sonam Phuntsok (Reting Rimpoche)
Lobsang Samten (Master of the Kitchen)
Gyatso Lukhang (Lord Chamberlain)
Jigme Tsarong (Taktra Rimpoche)
Tenzin Trinley (Ling Rimpoche)
Robert Lin (Chairman Mao)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 128m
u.s.
release: 12/6/97
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
other martin
scorsese films
reviewed on this website:
- the
aviator
- casino
- bringing
out the dead
- gangs
of new york
|
Martin
Scorsese's Kundun is a hushed and meditative film, wholly
befitting its subject (the Dalai Lama). Sometimes I don't understand
American critics, who have almost unanimously dismissed Kundun
as "boring" and "undramatic." They miss the
point -- and miss the movie. The Kundun I saw is Scorsese's
best movie since GoodFellas -- a dreamlike and poetic
vision of becalmed Buddhist life. Nothing much happens in the
conventional narrative sense (until the Chinese invade Tibet),
but Scorsese, usually the most hyperactive and tumultuous of
directors, makes you understand and appreciate the very idea
of nothing happening.
Kundun unfolds as a series of tableaux and impressionistic
montages; it's essentially an experimental film. The script,
by Melissa Mathison (E.T.),
outlines the barest bones of the Dalai Lama's story -- perfect
for Scorsese's purposes, because he isn't trying to make a normal
biopic. Kundun is pure cinema, a story telling itself
through images. Working with the great cinematographer Roger
Deakins and his usual editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese creates
the movie equivalent of a trance; Philip Glass's ritualistic,
repetitive score serves as a kind of mantra.
The movie begins with little Tenzin Gyatso, a normal toddler
who seems to exhibit the usual bratty behavior (he demands to
sit at his father's place at dinner). There are indications that
the boy is special -- that he has memories of power in a previous
life. "He thinks he's a king," sneers one of his brothers.
Close enough. Soon, a monk travelling to Lhapso stops at the
boy's house; he is looking for the reborn 14th Dalai Lama (the
13th has recently died), and he becomes convinced that the willful
little boy is the living incarnation of Buddha.
As some critics have pointed out, Scorsese keeps the early scenes
rather ambiguous. The prospective little Dalai Lama is told to
point at objects that "belong to him" -- i.e., belonged
to the previous Dalai Lama. The boy does so, subtly prodded by
the monk, whose expressions seem to guide the boy's hand. It's
almost a solemn game of "hot and cold." The monks,
after all, need another spiritual leader. Scorsese the famous
Catholic may not fully buy into the concept of reincarnation,
and may have planted tiny doubts like this in the narrative,
but in the end, the Dalai Lama, whether or not he was truly born
into his position, learns to grow into it.
Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong takes over the role when the Dalai Lama
moves into his teens, and he's a natural if undemonstrative actor,
with placid, angular features that reminded me a little of Matthew
Modine. The teenage leader of Tibet has gained wisdom since childhood,
but he's still basically a boy, untested and naïve, and
he waits until the last possible instant to flee Tibet once the
Chinese invade. The graceful images throughout have given us
reason to love Tibet, and we understand why the Dalai Lama doesn't
want to leave. Scorsese has shown us a mindful and elegant way
of life, and we mourn its violent passing in the hands of Mao
Zedong.
Kundun is light years beyond the previous Dalai Lama film,
the oafish Seven
Years in Tibet, in which we were supposed to sigh at
the highlights in Brad Pitt's hair as he hung out with the Dalai
Lama and became nicer. Neither is this a noble failure like Scorsese's
The Age of Innocence, an equally extreme departure. It's
closer to Scorsese's other spiritual study, The Last Temptation
of Christ, in which the savage red landscapes were a battleground
for Jesus's inner conflicts. Kundun rejects conflict (as
Buddhism itself does), and, since we Westerners demand conflict
in our drama, there's a danger of chalking Kundun up as
another noble failure. If only all "failures" were
this mesmerizing. At this late stage in his career, Scorsese
is still taking chances and refusing to play by the rules. This
quiet, meditative gallery of pictures may be his most radical,
trangressive film in years; it requires that we disavow everything
we want from normal movies. It's a true Buddhist work of art. |
