Scorsese has made nearly a dozen films based on real lives, except with Kundun, which would appear to be at many right angles from his other work, the real-life figure is taken very literally at face value, perhaps the only literal thing about this nonrepresentational construct. It essentially exists as a conjectural impression of the world through the transcendent view of a life in a very spiritual culture. The reason it is difficult at first to comprehend most things that everybody does for the first half hour is because this figure through whose eyes we're seeing had no concept but a present-tense experience of any of it. That's also the reason, I feel, why there is no plot but this purposely disjunctive succession of installments. If we knew what fills the blanks in between this experiences that we see, the abstract effect would be spoiled. Every scene brings us in cold. There is even a streak of Herzog in the odd or uncanny being seen as incidental and off-hand, as in a couple of formal gatherings where a mouse is allowed to sip freely from the drinking water.
One could argue this is not minor Scorsese, even though not even my biggest fellow Scorsese admirers seem to have ever breathed a word in conversation about it, because it's one of his boldest visions. He marshals a series of images in sync with sound and music he feels are more effective the less we know about the cultural and narrative details. How easy it would be for most filmmakers, even other great ones, to allow that to translate practically as, "The less coherent I make it, the more it will seem exotic and spiritual." But Scorsese's earnestness in and integrity to his intentions are so for real that doubt never arises. But my experience of this film may be, and probably is, very different from yours. You need look no further than Raging Bull, his most highly revered film at least academically, to see that he is a poetic filmmaker, an intense visual and emotional thinker. And despite how baffling the departure of Kundun seems to be for so many of his fans, it may be his furthest distilled achievement at creating a cinematic experience that can't be described objectively but can only be seen and heard.
Sometimes this doesn't come off successfully. Some scenes end up with us not knowing whether to have already understood what goes on between the cuts or to just accept a character's take on whatever it is. Early, for instance, young Kundun is playing a board game with a Lama comprised of battle figurines. The cutting speeds madly through the game by merely whittling down to Kundun saying, "I have more men," the Lama saying, "I have smarter men," until the Lama finally says all the figurines are his men and gathers them up. He's won, and he tells Kundun he may win tomorrow. The scene is pared down to that inherent lesson in humility, but they seem to be making up the rules of their game as they go along, so we don't feel we've experienced the lesson alongside the characters.
Tenzin Topjar, whose name I just copied down because I've never been able to retain the names of this cast, is a great child actor. In playing a spoiled and proud little Dalai Lama, the vanity he projects is always as guileless and dopey as every kid aged five to ten that you've ever met. The contrast between the pure showcase of his age and the stateliness he takes on is one of the various intrigues of Tibetan culture that drives the abstract fascination of the film. He loudly sucks up drool from his lip when saying the words, "I take refuge in the three jewels until I attain enlightenment." His tutor tells him Dalai Lamas aren't supposed to eat eggs, so he makes a face at him and gobbles down an egg. Spiritual leaders remain extraordinarily patient as he snatches precious things from them and saying, "Mine!" Idiosyncratic fascination with the story's culture itself is perhaps the most potent thing about the film, made explicit by the 1940s episode in which an adolescent Kundun reacts with wonder to various Western conventions, including an unexpected hint of slapstick in his unsuccessfully trying to drive a car, as well as his captivated discovery of old Melies reels hand-cranked through an old motion picture projector, which is as good as Scorsese's written signature on the screen, though it's apparently a true memory of the real-life 14th Dalai Lama. The most poignant of these moments, though, is the clash of East and West as these young Buddhists look on at footage of the atom bomb destroying Hiroshima.
I appreciate this sonnet of textures and stillness for being so wholeheartedly faithful to its vision, for being keen to disentangle from audience expectations and abide by its heart. I esteem it for its formalistic grace. And yet Scorsese seems to be rummaging here for something that's not part of him and never could be. What normally characterizes a Scorsese film is his fervent knowledge of exactly how his character feels at every moment. Here, I perceive him asking himself conceptually about who Kundun is.
One could argue this is not minor Scorsese, even though not even my biggest fellow Scorsese admirers seem to have ever breathed a word in conversation about it, because it's one of his boldest visions. He marshals a series of images in sync with sound and music he feels are more effective the less we know about the cultural and narrative details. How easy it would be for most filmmakers, even other great ones, to allow that to translate practically as, "The less coherent I make it, the more it will seem exotic and spiritual." But Scorsese's earnestness in and integrity to his intentions are so for real that doubt never arises. But my experience of this film may be, and probably is, very different from yours. You need look no further than Raging Bull, his most highly revered film at least academically, to see that he is a poetic filmmaker, an intense visual and emotional thinker. And despite how baffling the departure of Kundun seems to be for so many of his fans, it may be his furthest distilled achievement at creating a cinematic experience that can't be described objectively but can only be seen and heard.
Sometimes this doesn't come off successfully. Some scenes end up with us not knowing whether to have already understood what goes on between the cuts or to just accept a character's take on whatever it is. Early, for instance, young Kundun is playing a board game with a Lama comprised of battle figurines. The cutting speeds madly through the game by merely whittling down to Kundun saying, "I have more men," the Lama saying, "I have smarter men," until the Lama finally says all the figurines are his men and gathers them up. He's won, and he tells Kundun he may win tomorrow. The scene is pared down to that inherent lesson in humility, but they seem to be making up the rules of their game as they go along, so we don't feel we've experienced the lesson alongside the characters.
Tenzin Topjar, whose name I just copied down because I've never been able to retain the names of this cast, is a great child actor. In playing a spoiled and proud little Dalai Lama, the vanity he projects is always as guileless and dopey as every kid aged five to ten that you've ever met. The contrast between the pure showcase of his age and the stateliness he takes on is one of the various intrigues of Tibetan culture that drives the abstract fascination of the film. He loudly sucks up drool from his lip when saying the words, "I take refuge in the three jewels until I attain enlightenment." His tutor tells him Dalai Lamas aren't supposed to eat eggs, so he makes a face at him and gobbles down an egg. Spiritual leaders remain extraordinarily patient as he snatches precious things from them and saying, "Mine!" Idiosyncratic fascination with the story's culture itself is perhaps the most potent thing about the film, made explicit by the 1940s episode in which an adolescent Kundun reacts with wonder to various Western conventions, including an unexpected hint of slapstick in his unsuccessfully trying to drive a car, as well as his captivated discovery of old Melies reels hand-cranked through an old motion picture projector, which is as good as Scorsese's written signature on the screen, though it's apparently a true memory of the real-life 14th Dalai Lama. The most poignant of these moments, though, is the clash of East and West as these young Buddhists look on at footage of the atom bomb destroying Hiroshima.
I appreciate this sonnet of textures and stillness for being so wholeheartedly faithful to its vision, for being keen to disentangle from audience expectations and abide by its heart. I esteem it for its formalistic grace. And yet Scorsese seems to be rummaging here for something that's not part of him and never could be. What normally characterizes a Scorsese film is his fervent knowledge of exactly how his character feels at every moment. Here, I perceive him asking himself conceptually about who Kundun is.