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REVIEW | SAMSARA

Cast and Credits
	Producers Karl Baumgartner, Christoph Friedel Director   Pan Nalin Cast   Shawn Ku, Christy Chung, Neelesha BaVora, Kelsang Tashi,Jamayang Jinpa

There is a certain awesomeness about Samsara that director Pan Nalin has evoked, and that is the overwhelming harmony one feels with the landscape and the characters whilst watching the film. Samsara is the first Indian film to be shot in Ladakh, 15,000 feet way into the clouds. Ladakh’s varied charms are the secluded, rock face monasteries, the barren yet striking landscape and the sparkling, gushing rivers. All of these give it the rugged look amidst which Buddhist monks search for and find enlightenment. And yes, the sparseness of greenery which one would associate with reflectiveness. Samsara is about a young monk Tashi, who after solitary meditation (of three years three months three weeks and three days) still finds it difficult to resist the temptation of the flesh. He falls in love with Pema, a Ladakhi girl and gives up his monkhood for her love. He tells his mentor Appo that “The Buddha gave up his life at 29 after he had experienced it all. I have known nothing but this life from the age of 5.” At Appo’s behest Tashi meets a Lama in a remote place who would help him make up his mind. The older man exposes to him the sexual mysteries of the sacred Tantric texts; Tashi realizes that one has to experience worldly existence in order to renounce it. Tashi leaves the monastery, marries Pema and adapts to the life of a farmer, takes a few courageous steps and makes a comfortable life for his family, but also suffers a few consequences. In a moment of weakness, he strays into the arms of Sujata, a migrant labourer. The Samsara or the world he wants to live in is far more complicated that life in the monastery. To assuage his stirrings and his fears, he leaves home in the still of night and makes his way to the monastery. Will Tashi emulate the Buddha?

Director Pan Nalin must be credited for engaging the audience with the easy, flowing narrative. It paces Tashi’s wanderings through the terrain of Ladakh, dwelling into Leh and its outlying rural homesteads and farms. Sometimes eventful, sometimes erotic, and most times quiet. Amidst the reflective script, Pan Nalin and his writers have infused an element of humour vis-à-vis the delightful pranks of the child lama and his quips, and Tashi’s meeting with the old lama who shows him the carnality of lust through hand-drawn sketches which with a sleight of the hand show another face. Perhaps the most dramatic scene of the film is also the quietest, when Pema halts Tashi as he heads for the monastery and pertinently points out that everyone knows about what Prince Siddhartha left a sleeping Yashodhra and Rahul and became the Buddha. But no one knows about Yashodhra’s turmoil, and that she cut off her hair and followed the life of an ascetic. The actress Christy Chung plays the scene with voice modulation and eye expression to perfection. It’s a scene any actress would have given an arm and a leg to do. The astounding visuals are the work of the internationally renowned cinematographer Rali Raltschev, who has painted Ladakh on celluloid scene-by-scene and frame-by-frame. Marked by an overall excellence, Samsara comes to the Indian screens almost five years after it has done the rounds of internationals film festivals and won awards and acclaim.