Film review by Kevin Patterson
KUNDUN Rating: ***1/2 (out of four) PG-13, 1997 Director: Martin Scorsese Screenplay: Melissa Mathison
Martin Scorsese's KUNDUN, which chronicles roughly the first twenty years of the life of the currently exiled Dalai Lama, has been criticized for its lack of narrative structure. Personally, I don't think it needs one: it works perfectly well as a study of Tibetan Buddhist culture and how Communist China . Scorsese views the Dalai Lama the way many Tibetans probably do, as a larger-than-life symbol of Buddhist spirituality and political leadership: the only glimpses into his head come from several interesting yet oblique dream sequences, but his portrayal is appropriate for a film that concentrates on the political and spiritual rather than the personal. The set design and cinematography are outstanding, and while Scorsese occasionally seems to get carried away with the spectacle, it helps to augment the cultural contrast when the Dalai Lama travels to China to meet Chairman Mao. Political art sometimes succumbs to the temptation to start shouting slogans, KUNDUN does not: it succeeds in delivering its message in an artistically interesting way and without being overly manipulative.
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