Seven Years in Tibet was by no means a perfect film. However, this tale of the redemption of former Nazi Heinrich Harrer, who came to know the Dalai Lama was compelling and, ultimately, moving. While Scorsese's Kundun may give a more realistic view of the life of the Dalai Lama with its all-Asian cast (no role for Harvey Keitel or Robert De Niro?) it is excruciatingly slow-moving and lacks a consistent theme or tone. If it is a tale meant to be told in an eastern manner, then perhaps Scorsese's western point-of-view interferes with the telling.
Many of Kundun's best scenes come at the beginning. The film opens with a highly magnified view of the creation of a mandala (sand-painting), while we hear the mother of the four-year-old Dalai Lama telling the story of his birth to him. Shortly thereafter, the boy (played by four actors over the course of the film, as an adult by Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong) is discovered by emissaries from far-off Lhasa. These monks are certain of the child's identity when he is able to identify objects belonging to the previous Dalai Lama, diead four years previously. He snatches these off a table, shouting "Mine! Mine!"
Both films portray the Dalai Lama as an extraordinary young man endowed with endearingly normal boyish characteristics. The religious and secular leader of a nation still cannot resist giggling and chasing his brother around the palace. Both films also feature many scenes in common. The Dalai Lama in both films spends time looking through a telescope, taking things apart with a screwdriver, and watching movies. In both movies, he plays around with an old car and has an elaborate music box. The screenwriters for both films must have depended on much of the same original source material, as the Dalai Lama is nearly identical in both films. In Kundun perhaps we see more of his status as a religious leader, and less of his attempts to modernize his nation as in Seven Years in Tibet.
Both films are centered around an identical crisis. After World War II, Tibet is threatened by the new People's Republic of China. Since the Dalai Lama is still only a teenager, the sight of him dealing with Chairman Mao (Robert Lin) himself is almost surreal. Of course Tibet is unable to oppose her vastly more powerful neighbor, and quickly the country is absorbed into a new, repressive whole. The films conclude differently: Seven Years in Tibet ends with the Dalai Lama still in China, while Kundun portrays his ultimate departure from the nation, walking over the Indian border to the lament of his people.
The most important quality Scorsese brings to this film is his eye for novel images. As previously mentioned, the close-ups of the sand paintings are striking. Perhaps the ephemberal nature of the mandala is a visual metaphor for Tibet. In the film, the Dalai Lama sometimes sees the death of his people in his mind's eye, and there is nobody better than Scorsese at portraying scenes or tableaux of bloody carnage. While the religous ceremonies consist largely of the standard series of processions, there are an interesting series of scenes involving a large, raving soothsayer.
Yes, the Dalai Lama is certainly one of the most fascinating figures alive today. However, does his life necessarily work as a film? He was born, discovered, and fled to India. Unless one already has a strong interest in him, in Tibet, or in Buddhism, then Kundun can be a tedious cinematic exercise. True, the production values are outstanding, but no more so than in Seven Years in Tibet. The music of Philip Glass, despite using some Tibetan themes and instruments, consists largely of repeated scales, soporfic in their monotony. While Glass does have an affinity for figures of peace like the Dalai Lama (see his opera Satyagraha), his music is not always as individually expressive of them as it might be: the score is much better suited for an exercise like Koyannisqaatsi.
Take this criticism with a great deal of salt. Perhaps Kundun did not work for me because I am appallingly shallow. However, as a film, I believe Seven Years in Tibet, with its story of how one man came to enlightenment due to the influence of the Dalai Lama worked better than Kundun and its portrayal of the mutual relationship that the Dalai Lama and his country had.
Two-and-a-half stars
Copyright 1998 by Dale G. Abersold
