Movies, at their best, can open up whole new worlds to us — which is what Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun” splendidly accomplishes.
“Kundun” takes us on a voyage of the spirit, an adventure within and without. That’s not a small achievement, even though, in the post-1980s movie era of blood-drenched demolition derbies and explosive high-tech extravaganzas, it may be the kind of artistic feat that gets insufficiently appreciated.
That would be a shame. Hauntingly beautiful, raptly serious and vastly ambitious, “Kundun” is exactly the sort of movie that critics complain the major Hollywood studios never make — and then tend to ignore or underrate when it finally appears. It has its flaws, but it’s still one of the year’s most remarkable movies: a mystical and historical epic, gorgeously designed and photographed, set against a vividly realized historical and cultural backdrop, Tibet from 1937 to 1959.
Tracing the reign of the 14th Dalai Lama — from his ascension to power at the age of 2, until his flight from the country and the Chinese Communist takeover at 24 — Scorsese’s movie presents its main subject as a near-storybook figure, inhabiting a near-fairytale realm. With its towering snow-mantled peaks, Tibet (re-created here mostly in Morocco) is a storybook land, one of the world’s sublime geographical settings. But thanks to Scorsese’s powerful visual and dramatic sense and passionate engagement, his epic never gets swamped in the picturesque — unlike Jean-Jacques Annaud’s “Seven Years in Tibet,” which covers most of the same material.
We meet the Dalai Lama, or Kundun, at 2, when he is discovered and brought to the court, then see his education and the mesmerizing daily routines of his enclosed Buddhist world. (Among the unusually effective, mostly non-professional Tibetan actors, Kundun’s mother is acted by Tencho Gyalpo, who, in real life, is the granddaughter of the woman she plays.) Finally, we follow him through his country’s worst crisis: the invasion of Tibet by China, after Mao Tse-Tung’s successful Communist revolution.
The earlier sections of “Kundun” unfold with a silken grandeur that hovers on the edge of childlike awe but never indulges it. But, when we get to the Chinese invasion, Scorsese’s brilliance as a filmmaker fully emerges. “Seven Years in Tibet,” which was told from the viewpoint of Kundun’s Austrian mountain climber friend, Heinrich Harrier (Brad Pitt), descended into good-guys, bad-guys stuff at this point — which is the way many tend to see China’s brutalization and subjugation of its smaller neighbor. Scorsese, however, goes deeper. He gives these scenes a sense of historical conflict and national tragedy, as well as a feverish intensity that sometimes approaches nightmare — as in the bizarrely flamboyant portrayal of Mao (by Chinese-American actor Robert Lin) as a jovial cutup and bully.
By the end, we can see the Dalai Lama not simply as a privileged boy in a sequestered world but as a whole person who is eventually forced out of his womblike safety into the cold, windy battlefields outside. Scorsese uses four actors to play Kundun: Tenzin Yeshi Paichang (at age 2), Tulku Jamyang Kunga Tenzin (at 5), Gyurme Tethong (at 12) and, for the adult scenes, Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong. He charts Kundun’s growth from a child king to an adult refugee fleeing his homeland to the world beyond the hill. And, because we follow that growth, there’s more than pathos, or even anger, at the end. There’s a grim satisfaction that the boy survives, shows mettle.
Most of the movie’s (small) failures are due to the script, a longtime labor of love by Melissa Mathison, Harrison Ford’s wife and the author of two superb children’s movies, “E.T.” and “The Black Stallion.” Mathison doesn’t supply strong dramatic content or dialogue here. And, obviously, she wanted a film that would please the still-living Dalai Lama; the besetting sin of her script is overreverence, as if every word were addressed, shyly, to “His Holiness.” But Scorsese, a great actor’s director, makes sure the cast don’t become holy waxworks. All of them give their parts flesh and soul, wit and life.
Scorsese, who surprised audiences with his elegant Edith Wharton adaptation, “The Age of Innocence,” will surprise some again with the spiritual and pacifist “Kundun.” After all, he’s best known for those great, searing urban crime dramas with Bobby De Niro and the guys, movies seething with profanity and erupting with carnality and bloodshed: “Mean Streets,” “Taxi Driver,” “Goodfellas’ and “Casino.”
But Scorsese’s deep interest in religion is well-known, too, and he approaches this material with respect, curiosity and a keen eye for beauty. He also has some of the best technical collaborators of his career. The results are often breathtaking. The movie has a unique look, one that occasionally recalls Michael Powell’s fantastic Tibetan romance “Black Narcissus” as well as John Ford’s “The Searchers.” And, in a way, with its throbbing Philip Glass score, this is Scorsese’s Western opera, his “Lawrence of Arabia,” with a Buddhist core. It always glows, reaches toward the transcendent. When it fails, it fails grandly.
Though most reviewers haven’t been rating “Kundun” as one of the top films this year, they’re making a mistake. Whether “Kundun” is a perfect movie or not, it’s an important and beautiful one. Scorsese’s movie takes us into a world we’ve rarely seen with this kind of sympathy or detail: a magical-looking society built on Buddhism and centuries of art and tradition. Then, it shows that world being torn apart in hurricanes of world change after World War II. Quietly and with passion, it takes us through a people’s agony, by focusing on the heart of the matter — the child, boy and man who leads them.
”Kundun”
(star) (star) (star) (star)
Directed by Martin Scorsese; written by Melissa Mathison; photographed by Roger Deakins, second unit photography by Caleb Deschanel; edited by Thelma Schoonmaker; production designed by Dante Ferretti; music by Philip Glass; produced by Barbara De Fina. A Touchstone Pictures release; opens Friday. Running time: 2:15. MPAA rating: PG-13.
THE CAST
Dalai Lama (Adult) ……… Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong
Dalai Lama (Age 12) …….. Gyurme Tethong
Dalai Lama (Age 5) ……… Tulku Jamyang Kunga Tenzin
Dalia Lama (Age 2) ……… Tenzin Yeshi Paichang
Reting Rinpoche ………… Sonam Phuntsok
Taktra Rinpoche ………… Tsewang Jigme Tsarong
Dalai Lama’s Mother …….. Tencho Gyalpo
Dalai Lama’s Father …….. Tsewang Migyur Khangsar
Chairman Mao …………… Robert Lin
