Forest of Bliss

Robert Gardner's hypnotic look at the city of Benares, India, works in two ways, first and foremost as a memorable tour through an exotic world totally alien from our own. But beyond all the kaleidoscopic images and sounds is a unique understanding of the contradictions shaping Indian culture. Eavesdropping on activity around the Great Cremation Ground over the course of a single day, Gardner's camera reveals the beauty co-existing with the squalor: the reverence for life alongside the harsh reality of death. Corpses are consigned with great ceremony to the holy waters of the Ganges River, only to be fed upon by vultures. Sacred cows wander inviolate through the streets past lean and hungry scavenger dogs. This is a documentary in the purest sense, using no subtitles or narration, and with music and dialogue provided only as part of the natural background of sound.

A beautiful documentary about the death industry in India. It is presented with vivid sound but no words or subtitles in English. I found the film a bit hypnotic and sleep inducing at the beginning, but as I gradually started to piece together a narrative of what I thought could be happening I started to construct a story from the presented sounds and images. Cows munching on marigold leis, burning bodies, pouring water on the ashes, fighting dogs, hauling wood for the pyres and an ill tempered funeral director haggling over the price of a service. I'm sure that no one else came away with an understanding very much like mine, but the film maker was able to give me vivid images so I could invent my own story.

Unfortunately the director thought he was presenting an essay. For me with no words, it was like trying to understand an essay written in German, for someone who speaks and reads only English. I could pick out a few common ideas around death rituals that I have seen or sat through such as an Irish wake, or sitting shivah, but I missed most of the meaning and details about this set of Hindu cultural practices.

Though it is not what I expect from a good documentary, this very polished film may be more insightful for someone who has spent considerable time in India.

A documentary about life and death in Benares, India. I saw this movie at a small theatre in Seattle almost ten years ago; I don't believe it's been through town since.

The movie begins with sunrise and ends with sunset. There is no English dialog or voice-over in the film; everything is visual. The subject matter, Benares itself, is remarkable, shocking and dirty and beautiful: funeral processions, kite-flying children, thousands of marigolds, fighting dogs, it goes on. Watching the film - and this I loved - was like watching a story unfold. Themes would develop and be examined in-depth, and when enough was said, a new theme would take its place: when my eyes wandered from street level and started noticing the brilliantly colored kites in the sky, Gardner shifted his focus to the children playing in the steady wind by the river, and I saw where the kites came from. After so many funeral processions pass, you become curious about the thousands of marigolds covering the bodies; quickly, you're taken to the rolling marigold farms.

Watching the film is like seeing tales of a distant and strange culture being told from behind sound-proof glass, tales which fascinate and even entertain. I hope I have a chance to see it again.