Kundun
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Kundun |
| Original title | Kundun |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1997 |
| length | 134 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Martin Scorsese |
| script | Melissa Mathison |
| production | Barbara De Fina |
| music | Philip Glass |
| camera | Roger Deakins |
| cut | Thelma Schoonmaker |
| occupation | |
| |
Kundun is a film by the American director Martin Scorsese , shot in 1997 on Moroccan locations.
The film shows the life of Tendzin Gyatsho , the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet , from his election in 1937 to his flight to India from the Chinese occupation in 1959 . It is characterized by meditative, colorful pictures and the effective music by Philip Glass . Occasionally an undistant, hagiographic approach was recognized in the film .
action
A two-year-old farmer's son is recognized by Buddhist monks in Tibet in the countryside near the Chinese border as the sought-after rebirth of the 13th Dalai Lama. The self-confident toddler cheekily claims the prayer chain of his predecessor as his own. From various objects he chooses those that belonged to his predecessor and he knows the names of the foreign monks. The little boy is brought to Lhasa , the capital of Tibet, to be prepared for his future role by the scholars there. Most of the film shows life at the court of the Dalai Lama with all its Buddhist ceremonies and rites, but also the irritations of a little boy in a distant city with a sense of great responsibility. In the last part, the audience sees the Chinese invasion, the mass murder of monks, the destruction of thousands of monasteries and the robbery of Tibetan identity. The Kundun issues a general amnesty : “ Freedom for all. “The Dalai Lama can not convince the“ Great Chairman ”of the independence of Tibet in a personal conversation, since he considers all religion to be poison and the Tibetan system of government to be extremely backward. The film ends with the Dalai Lama fleeing to India, which was not least advised by the questioning of the State Oracle in the Nechung Monastery . The spectacular oracle ceremony is shown in the film on several occasions.
Emergence
The idea for the film comes from the screenwriter Melissa Mathison, the ex-wife of Harrison Ford and author of the Oscar-nominated screenplay for ET - The Extra-Terrestrial . The Dalai Lama himself worked on the script. Martin Scorsese immediately agreed to film it when Melissa Mathison submitted the script to him in 1993. He later said in an interview that he is interested in the Dalai Lama as a moral authority who can serve as a good example to the whole world. Since neither India nor China issued filming permits, the film was filmed, in addition to a few scenes in Canada and the USA , mainly in Morocco - exclusively with Tibetan actors, a large number of them from the Dalai Lama's extensive family.
Remarks
- Kundun ( Wylie : Sku-mdun ) is an honorary title of the Dalai Lama, is pronounced “Kundun” and means “the venerable presence”.
- Martin Scorsese is one of around 50 people who are banned from visiting the People's Republic of China for life by the Chinese government . These include the American actors Harrison Ford and Richard Gere . The same happened to the most important contributors to the 1997 Tibet film Seven Years in Tibet , including director Jean-Jacques Annaud and the world-famous actors Brad Pitt and David Thewlis .
- The film shows the ritual of heavenly burial , which is still common in parts of Tibet , in which the flesh is cut from the bones of the dead and fed to birds. This ritual is very old and has been proven by archaeological finds from early hunter and gatherer cultures . Despite this depiction and the showing of a newspaper photo showing three severed heads, the film was rated for ages 6 and up.
Reviews
- Franz Everschor attests Kundun “fascinating images with an almost magical attraction” and a “rarely ingenious soundtrack ”, composed by Philip Glass . However, the script is not up to the topic in its intellectual dimension and often only provides paper-based dialogues.
- For Tomasso Schultze, the images convey “an uplifting, if not devout feeling” while the plot simply ticks off the stages in the Dalai Lama's life. “Only at the very end, when Scorsese combines dream and reality, past and future into an awesome vision of a better world ,” Kundun becomes a great film.
- TV Today (06/1998) would like torecommendKundun as a successful film poem for those hungry for Buddhism , but the film is difficult to tolerate for normal viewers.
- The critic of prisma online saw “overwhelming visual power” and “an authentic picture” of Tibetan culture in the film.
- Peter Stack wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle : “Stupefying, strange, glorious, calm and truly absorbing [...] 'Kundun' is arguably the most unlinguistic movie experience we can find in theaters. [...] Films rarely achieve this - very close to capturing the feeling in a man's spiritual existence. […] A film with surprisingly rich inner life and moments of stone silence and calm. Can the audience do that? "
- Stephen Holden in the New York Times : " Martin Scorsese has never been so close to creating a work of pure film art ."
Awards
Kundun was nominated for an Oscar four times at the 1998 Academy Awards: Best Cinematography (Roger Deakins), Best Film Music (Philip Glass), and Best Production Design and Best Costume Design (both Dante Ferretti ).
Web links
- Kundun in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Kundun at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Kundun at Metacritic (English)
- The script (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b cf. Roger Ebert : Kundun. In: Rogerebert.com. January 16, 1998, accessed on May 22, 2008 (English): "like one of the popularized lives of the saints [...] The film's visuals and music are rich and inspiring, and like a mass by Bach or a Renaissance church painting , it exists as an aid to worship [...] "
- ↑ cf. on the use of the color red in Kundun : Susanne Marschall: An initial of seeing - art, everyday life, cinema . In: Catholic Institute for Media Information [KIM] and Catholic Film Commission for Germany (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . tape 3 . Zweiausendeins , Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-86150-455-3 , p. R 6 f . ( Short entry ).
- ^ David Edelstein: Holding Their Fire. In: Slate . December 26, 1997, accessed on May 22, 2008 (English): "hagiography"
- ↑ film-dienst 05/1998
- ↑ Tomasso Schultze: Kundun (1997) . cinema , accessed August 3, 2015.
- ↑ Peter Stack: Film Review - Scorsese creates a feast for the senses with 'Kundun'. (No longer available online.) In: San Francisco Chronicle . January 16, 1998, formerly in the original ; accessed on May 14, 2008 (English): “Stunning, odd, glorious, calm and sensationally absorbing […] 'Kundun' is as near a nonverbal movie experience as we're likely to find at theaters. [...] comes amazingly close to catching the thing movies almost never get - the sensation of man's spiritual life. […] A film with a surprisingly rich inner life and great moments of stone silence and stillness. Can audiences handle it? "
- ↑ Stephen Holden : 'Kundun': The Dalai Lama, from infant to adult, in exile. In: The New York Times . December 24, 1997, accessed on May 14, 2008 (English): "Martin Scorsese has come the closest he ever has to making a work of pure cinema."