Synopsis
One thread of the script evokes the folk tales and legends about Csoma. Abounding in humor, these naive stories portray the man as a folk-tale hero. The other thread seeks to conjure up, with the help of original Tibetan texts and other literary sources, the thoughts and feelings captured in these books--heaven and hell, the nether world and hereafter, intermediate states of existence, philosophy, poetry and religion. All of these shaped Csoma's personality and world-view, guiding him through the final years of his life.
Like the story, the imagery of the film has two different strands. One is the tale of the storyteller--the Csoma legends with animated scenes painted in pastel colours, like the pictures in a Victorian storybook. The images of the other strand are not out to illustrate--we are IN the Buddhist world of India, Tibet and the Himalayas. We follow Alexander Csoma's passage through India, as well as his inner journey. Shot on 8-mm, this film has a bland color-world. It lies on the borderland of dream and reality, with unique and consistent, almost still images; now in sync with the flow of multilingual narration and music, now counterpoint to it. The film is constructed upon these two very different visual idioms.
Like the story, the imagery of the film has two different strands. One is the tale of the storyteller--the Csoma legends with animated scenes painted in pastel colours, like the pictures in a Victorian storybook. The images of the other strand are not out to illustrate--we are IN the Buddhist world of India, Tibet and the Himalayas. We follow Alexander Csoma's passage through India, as well as his inner journey. Shot on 8-mm, this film has a bland color-world. It lies on the borderland of dream and reality, with unique and consistent, almost still images; now in sync with the flow of multilingual narration and music, now counterpoint to it. The film is constructed upon these two very different visual idioms.
Gallery
