KUNDUN
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Martin Scorsese gives us what amounts
to an encyclopedia article on the Dalai Lama from
early life until his exile. The Lama is always
perfect and never human. The strongest emotion
Scorsese gives the Lama or evokes in the audience
for that matter, is bewilderment at the mysterious
culture of Tibet. The film should have taken more
chances and humanized its subject a little more.
Rating: 6 (0 to 10), +1 (-4 to +4) Spoiler warning:
this review will assume the reader has common
knowledge about the Dalai Lama.
New York Critics: 11 positive, 1 negative, 7 mixed
Seeing KUNDUN is a lot like reading a good article about the Dalai Lama and Tibet from the National Geographic. It has great color photography and it has a lot of facts. But it is an appeal more to the intellect than to the emotions. And even as an appeal to the intellect not everything that the viewer sees will be understood. But neither what we see, nor what we hear in the dialogue fleshes out the character. Director Martin Scorsese would almost have us believe that there is nothing to the Dalai Lama but a bundle of wise Buddhist aphorisms. Like a Magic 8-ball, whenever he is shaken a different wise response comes floating to the surface.
The story begins in 1933. The 13th Dalai Lama is dead and in the Tibetan tradition scouts have been sent out to find a young boy who is the new incarnation of the Dalai Lama's soul. A two-year-old child is found who seems to be the 14th reincarnation of the Buddha of Compassion. The young child's parents are already aware that their son is special due to favorable omens surrounding the child, but we never find out what they feel when they have confirmed that their child is, in fact, a Buddha of Compassion.
The boy is brought to the magnificent palace embedded in the side of a mountain, one of the most majestic buildings in all the world. And to the boy's bewilderment he is immersed in Buddhist wisdom. Soon he begins to understand what is going on and begins to speak with the insight we would expect of the Dalai Lama. Still, there is much in the film left intentionally enigmatic for the audience. In one scene we have a large hissing dancer performs for the Lama and then slides across the floor up to the Lama. The scene ends with no more message to the viewer than that this obviously means something. The viewer begins an outsider at the beginning of the film and remains an outsider right through to the end. Then, as if there was not already enough in the film that is hard to follow, Scorsese adds sequences of his own visual symbolism. Rather than show us a big unexplained piece of Tibetan culture, Scorsese would have done better to show us a smaller sample and explain his understanding of it. We get a better idea of who the Dalai Lama is as a person from SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET than we do from this biography of the Lama.
As the story progresses, Tibet is invaded by China and the Lama has to face the implications of the Chinese invasion of his country. He is brought, a virtual prisoner, to China where he meets with a surprisingly affable Chairman Mao. The Chinese leader is apparently a man who can have a simple peasant charm one moment and order the death of thousands the next. Mao politely but firmly threatens the Lama to cooperate with the Chinese rape of his country. The Lama appeals to the world for help, but not surprisingly his pleas are to little avail. It seems Tibet's natural isolation is a double-edged sword: over the centuries it has been a natural barrier to invaders, but no military force in the world will pierce that barrier just for the sake of altruism. Eventually the Lama must decide if he will serve his country best from within or outside its borders. The film lacks the scope of history and the human values that the similar GANDHI had. Gandhi was made much more a three-dimensional character than the Lama.
Scorsese tells the story of the Lama with a cast of unknowns, most of whom are Tibetan amateurs. They all stand in the right places say their lines, but there is no passion in the performances. The Tibetans' seem as cold and distant as their land. Melissa Mathison's screenplay conveys none of the emotion of her writing screenplays for THE BLACK STALLION and for E.T., THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. Roger Deakins to create a believable Tibet in hues of reds, yellows, and browns. (The real Tibet being inaccessible, he shot instead in Morocco, British Columbia, and Idaho.) Philip Glass provides a score hypnotic in its repetitious minimalism. It seems well-suited to the splendor of Tibet but is perhaps not a rousing as the film needed.
KUNDUN is like a very sincere tribute to a great man that just would not come out the way it was intended. The Dalai Lama may well be a great man, but KUNDUN is not a great film biography. I rate it a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper
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