Wheel of Time

I just saw Wheel of Time yesterday at its premiere in Toronto, where Herzog was present. As usual, Herzog creates a compelling film: a portrait of a traditional Bhuddist initiation ceremony. Specifically, we are shown the pilgrimmage of hundreds of thousands of people to India and one year later, to a similar ceremony in Austria. On a purely documentary level, this winning film is a fascinating piece, giving insight into this ancient ceremony (including the pilgrimmage itself), as well as showing us the painstaking construction of a large "mandala" made out of colored sand, with a "wheel of time" intricately designed in its center. The interviews with the Dalai Lama were interesting and even humorous. On an artistic level, it is also a winner, as Herzog mixes stylistic poses and environmental landscapes within the structure of the documentary. Of course, Herzog's critics call this self-indulgence, but I strongly disagree. Herzog operates on a subconcious level in most of his films, including his narrative features, and actually succeeds where other "artsy" filmmakers fail miserably. Herzog has produced yet another fascinating masterpiece.

This film is an exploration of several Tibetan Buddhist rituals, and centers around an initiation in India attended by hundreds of thousands of Himalayan devotees, many of whom arrive after punishing pilgrimages that, in one case, took up to three and a half years. As Cinema this film excels. Herzog places himself in the midst of the throng. The faces he captures tell a thousand stories. Yet the actual stories are few and far between. There is a cool detachment in this film that gives it an anthropological feel. Herzog admitted in a live discussion after the screening that he had little familiarization with Buddhism, and reluctantly took this assignment after several requests only after the Dalai Lama himself personally asked him to do it. There is little to be learned here about the ritual itself, as the film focuses mostly on the attendees. Herzog seems uninterested in the meaning behind the sometimes strange-seeming actions of the devoted monks, and focuses instead on observation. While this is a smart approach for a film-maker on one hand, since any attempt to explain this complicated philosophical system would undoubtably fall short, I was left wanting more. If I can make a somewhat strange metaphor: it was like seeing a documentary on the Superbowl, which focused on Americans traveling from all over the country, standing in long lines, paying large sums of money to get in, drinking beer, shouting and cheering at the field, or shouting at television screens, waving strange banners around, and possibly braving rain, snow or blizzard to see it--without ever really going into what football is. Long shots of haggard faces and people doing "the wave" would be compelling to watch, but wouldn't give a true picture of the event. If you're interested in seeing a fly-on-the-wall observation of a very interesting and different aspect of the human experience, this film succeeds. But if you are interested in understanding the Kalachakra ritual, or learning more about Buddhism, then, like me, you'll be left unsatisfied. Perhaps the film is mistitled. The title, "Wheel of Time", somehow promised something different to me. A more apt title would be something like, "Naked Devotion".

It's interesting to read that Werner Herzog wasn't an expert on Buddhism when he filmed this. In a way, that's the charm of this film. Essentially we're given a backstage pass to a Buddhist festival. In Herzog fashion, he holds the camera longer than most, filming his subjects looking for any reaction. In a childlike way, it could be very compelling. Especially since this world is so strange to most westerners that the audience is like any tourists in a strange land. We stare a little too long.

My only complaint is he ended the movie in the wrong place. Just because The Dalai Lama couldn't finish the rituals doesn't mean the movie needs to go to another continent to find a happy ending.

Famed German filmmaker Werner Herzog and his crew travel to a Buddhist pilgrimage site in Bodgaya, India. There they film the believers as they do the many tasks that they feel lead to greater enlightenment. The film's title is about a sand drawing or a 'mandala' that is created for this event.

While my summary is pretty much true of all films, it's especially true of "Wheel of Time". If you have no interest in Buddhism or don't like documentaries that are light on narration and thorough explanations, then you'll probably not enjoy this film. This isn't meant pejoratively--it's just that your interests will really have a lot to do with whether I'd recommend it to you. As a retired history teacher who often taught about world religions, I already had a reasonable understanding of many of the tenants of Buddhism as well as an interest in learning more. But I am NOT the typical person. And, I don't mind the vagueness in the narrative of this film very much--though I would have appreciated it if the film had talked about the basic beliefs of the religion. In other words, before attempting a discussion of the confusion topic of 'mandalas' (something which, it appeared, even the Dalai Lama had a hard time explaining in the film), perhaps it would have been best to discuss other aspects of the religion.

Things of interest to watch for would include the vat of tea (that's a lotta tea!), the great lengths to which some of the followers go to get there, the anticlimactic aspects of the pilgrimage and the later visit to Graz, Austria. Not for all tastes, but worth seeing if it is yours.

Wheel of Time is a curious documentary crucially because of someone from the West, like myself, being privy to traditional customs and ceremonial practices that seem like they could be coming from another world. But, as one soon learns, this curiosity is strong because it IS apart of this world, and maybe the truest moment of clarity from the Dalai Lama himself comes when he states how the universe is really not owned by one country or apart of one mountain or other, but is in how an individual conceives it- the universe, the center of it, is in you, or at least your projection of what it is, which is not something collective but ultimately is. It's a very wise statement that will keep me pondering it over for a long time. Likewise, the Kalachakra mandala becomes like a metaphor for this ideal, of hundreds of thousands of people coming together for the purpose of- aside from getting priceless words from the Dalai Lama- being at inner peace with oneself, hence the universe.

By the end of Wheel of Time I didn't know much more about Buddhism than I had going into it, which isn't any real fault on Herzog's end as a filmmaker; it doesn't illuminate and challenge the mind too much like other documentaries of the filmmaker, but it's also nevertheless unique in Herzog's cannon for what he does and doesn't take on with his subject(s). On the one hand, he's endlessly fascinated with ritual, with physical movements, of the masses of people who have gone on this pilgrimage from thousands of miles from all over the continent for this once-in-two-years event (this adds a dosage of climactic irony for what happens there- an 'illness'). It's anthropological to an extent, only it's not one of everyday culture so much as the unheeding devotion to a religion based around enlightenment, not suffering via a messiah or other. On the other hand, Herzog relies this time on just being a guy with a camera, moving around these swarms of people, and this time Herzog relents for the most part to "directing landscapes" as he usually does to just catching people's faces, their body language, and the instruments at their disposal (which are, usually, their own bodies, as in their bowing-type moves to attain a level, and crawling on ones hands and face across land for a purpose). It's actually, for Herzog, kind of conventional, bordering on being something one might expect for television.

But this little note shouldn't discourage one from seeing the film, and whether you're a Buddhist or not it holds its own aura that provides moments almost akin to what the Dalai Lama wants for his pupils and followers. One's even reminded of Woodstock in comparison of a documentary that goes out of its way to show more-so the nature of the people who gather together, and the power of a gathering, than the actual acts themselves. On top of this, Herzog does the occasional focus on an individual (albeit a little sidetracked as it is during the climax) with a political prisoner released from China and allowed to finally "see" the Dalai Lama in person. And for Herzog fans who are always on the prowl for his 'adequate images', there's still a good few to go around here, like when he captures the mountains that the Tibetans go to in masses, or the final images, including one that is as haunting as anything Herzog's shot. It's a peaceful, brisk journey; not a great work, but not an insignificant one either.