Little Buddha
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Little Buddha |
| Original title | Little Buddha |
| Country of production | Great Britain , France |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1993 |
| length | 140 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Bernardo Bertolucci |
| script | Bernardo Bertolucci , Rudy Wurlitzer |
| production | Jeremy Thomas |
| music | Ryuichi Sakamoto |
| camera | Vittorio Storaro |
| cut | Pietro Scalia |
| occupation | |
| |
Little Buddha is a 1993 film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and starring Keanu Reeves , Bridget Fonda , Chris Isaak and Alex Wiesendanger .
action
In order to find the reincarnation of his great teacher Lama Dorje, the sick Lama Norbu sets out and finds the boy Jesse Conrad in Seattle . While Jesse is enthusiastic about Buddhism , the parents Dean and Lisa Conrad are skeptical. They don't believe in reincarnation, but their boy seems to be getting more and more into the belief that he is the reincarnation of Lama Dorje. The monks tell the father that two more children could be reincarnated and that the question could only be clarified in Bhutan , why the boy would have to travel there. Dean refuses, rushes out of the temple and drives home with Jesse. On the way, he learned by phone that his friend and work colleague Evan had died. He reconsiders his position and decides with his wife that he now wants to travel to Bhutan with Jesse. During their stopover in Nepal , they also get to know the other candidates, the boy Raju and the girl Gita.
During the framework of the film, Lama Norbu tells the traditional life story of the historical Buddha , Siddhartha Gautama , from his mythical birth to enlightenment. Jesse accompanies the story with interest and imitates some details, such as meditating under a (rubber) snake. One might think of an Imitatio Dei here .
When they arrive at the Bhutanese monastery fortress Paro, the children have to take a test to find the hat of the deceased lama. It turns out that all three children are the reincarnation of Lama Dorje. His body (Raju), his voice (Gita) and his mind (Jesse) are, according to Norbu, only one unit together. After Lama Norbu has completed this last task, he separates from his few belongings and retires to meditation, during which he passes peacefully into death. His body is cremated and the children go back to their homeland, where they scatter the part of the ashes given to them.
The representation of Buddha's life in the film
See also the surviving life story of Siddhartha Gautama .
The story of the Buddha is embedded in this framework, beginning with his conception through his birth and the predictions of some prophets. The director took acting liberties.
Siddharta becomes aware of the world outside the palace and secretly drives out of the palace to see illness, suffering and death there. The four traditional exits are combined into one, and he does not see a decaying corpse, but a cremation. First of all, he seeks redemption in the extreme. He joins a group of ascetics. During meditation, a snake protects him from rain, which would otherwise have disturbed his immersion. Eventually he realizes that the path between the extremes is the right one. The picture used for this is that of a harp string: If you tighten it too tightly, it tears, if you tighten it too little, you can't play on it. Siddharta renounces extreme life, so that the ascetics withdraw from it. (The fact that they later return to Buddha is no longer shown in the film.) Finally, Mara , the lord of darkness, tries to seduce the meditator. The wrong ways - his five daughters - are allegorically represented as beautiful women, but the enlightened one sees through their nature and can resist them.
Death and possibly rebirth of the Buddha are no longer discussed. The redeemed death of the old Lama Norbu and an implied rebirth as Jesse's brother could allegorically also represent the death and rebirth of the Buddha.
It should also be mentioned that the comparison with Jesus is necessary in many places, at one point in the framework plot this parallel is even drawn expressis verbis .
Reviews
- Lexicon of international film : A naive sheet of pictures designed as a monumental film with obvious proselytizing intentions, whose simple linear story is repeatedly interrupted with “flashbacks” into the life of Prince Siddharta, who was the first to receive enlightenment. An expensive, but seemingly arts and crafts film, whose characters are insufficiently developed.
- “The Oxford History of World Cinema” states that Bertolucci has moved away from the preferred themes of his earlier films: “ An unexpectedly calm, serene film from which class struggle and tortured sexuality are banned. "
literature
- Oscar Moore , Rudy Wurlitzer , Mark Peploe : Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha. The history of the making of the film. Screenplay by Rudy Wurlitzer and Mark Peploe (Original title: Little Buddha ). German by Armin Gontermann. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1994, ISBN 3-404-12162-7 , 414 pages (describes the genesis of the film and contains the script)
- Gordon McGill : Little Buddha. Novel. To the new epic film by Bernardo Bertolucci . German by Ariane Böckler. Goldmann, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-442-42527-1 , 187 pages (novel about the film)
Web links
- Little Buddha in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for Little Buddha . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2009 (PDF; test number: 70 780 V / DVD / UMD).
- ↑ Little Buddha. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 9, 2017 .
- ^ The Oxford History of World Cinema . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996, ISBN 0-19-811257-2 , p. 593