Movie review: "Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?"

[Guest guest]

Last night I rented "Why did Bodhi-Dharma Leave for the West". It instantly

jumps onto my all-time best list, along with Mayakovsky's "Solaris", and de

Sica's "The Bicycle Thief".

 

This movie is "about" Zen, meditation, the search for enlightenment. A

young man leaves his ailing mother to go study with an elderly Zen monk in

the mountains. There, he finds that the monk has adopted a little orphan

boy. Together, the three of them form an unlikely household. The elderly

monk teaches the young man with koans and sayings that form the spiritual

background of the lush imagery. The young boy becomes a complex character

in his own right as, left alone for hours by the two meditating men who

care for him, he has adventures with birds, other small children, and an

escaped cow that mature him until, at the end, he almost seems to be a

replica, in miniature, of the old monk.

 

The movie is long, slow, unbelievably poetic, beautifully photographed.

This movie has the best visual metaphors for spiritual experience I have

ever seen. The ending is incredible but I won't give it away.

 

Warning: this movie requires patience, especially the first hour when you

are not quite sure what is going on. But it rewards your attention and by

the end it is completely riveting.

 

A Reviews of Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? is here:

http://www.epinions.com/mvie_mu-1066282

 

David