Milarepa: Magician, Murderer, SaintPlays like a Wikipedia page October 3,
2007 11:27:05 AM
MILAREPA: Mountains, monks, and wailing women, but not the teachings of Milarepa.
|
All mountains, monks, and a soundtrack of wailing women, Neten Chokling’s film opens with the announcement of a birth. The father of this child exclaims, “This is joyful news!”, and he names the child Thopa Ga, which the subtitle translates as “joyful news.” Thus begins Chokling’s interpretation of the most inspirational saint in Tibet’s history. Although it’s believed that Thopa Ga, who will later become known as Milarepa, faced adversity throughout his life, there’s no sense of suffering here beyond the tiny amount of dirt that accumulates on his face. Despite a photogenic landscape, Milarepa plays like a Wikipedia page, with Chokling using Thopa Ga’s timeline as a cinematic checklist. Trite words of wisdom are scattered throughout the pedantry, the most repeated being “Don’t look back.” Good advice to the viewer, since this simplistic version of Milarepa’s life and teachings against greed and violence leaves little to reflect on.
|
|
Vote now in over 100 categories including the best local restaurants, comedian, filmmaker, performance artist, and yoga studio
Vote now in over 100 categories including the best local jukebox, bartender, dance club, and tattoo shop
Vote now in over 100 categories including best beer selection, bike route, gallery, and movie house
|
- Fans are paying the price for the Sox success: inside the Fenway fiasco
- The soap-operatic significance of the Bay Guardian–Village Voice Media battle
- Some Things at Trinity
- Never mind its tough-girl alt-porn feminism: SuicideGirls has already moved on to a new generation
- The Big Hurt: Trent Reznor pushes the premium fabric-bound envelope
- The first political leader of my generation acts nothing like the rest of us — which might be how he’s gotten where he is
- Fans are paying the price for the Sox success: inside the Fenway fiasco
- Meet Adam Gaffin, Boston’s reigning Web czar
- The Clean House at New Rep; Gary at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
- The soap-operatic significance of the Bay Guardian–Village Voice Media battle
- Teatro Lirico I at the Majestic Theatre, March 2, 2008
- The first political leader of my generation acts nothing like the rest of us — which might be how he’s gotten where he is
|
-
Courage and naïveté
-
No catharsis here, just soft piano keys
-
Deadpan that just feels dead
|
- Artfully done soap opera
- Courage and naïveté
- Art vis-à-vis life
- The world of half-baked ideas
- A Karate Kid ripoff
- Far out "history"
- Good-natured, egalitarian, and mildly stupid
- Van Sant takes time for a ride in Paranoid Park
- Another Martin Lawrence shtick
- Not worth the Oscar
|
|
|
|