The Human Cost
by
Howard Schumann

"If the Tibetan nation dissolves forever, assimilated by a vastly greater economic and military power, what message, as human beings, are we passing on to future generations?"
-- François Prévost

After 50 years of Chinese occupation, Tibet has lost most of its unique history, culture, language, and spiritual way of life. More than a million Tibetans have died under the Chinese occupation as a result of torture, starvation, and execution. Today, the Tibetan people are denied most rights guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the rights to self-determination, freedom of speech, assembly, movement, expression and travel. There have been many films about the distressing events happening in Tibet, but perhaps none as powerful as What Remains of Us, a Canadian documentary shot entirely in Tibet that allows us to witness the story from the Tibetan people themselves. Eight years in the making, it was voted the most popular Canadian film at the 2004 Vancouver International Film Festival.

Filmmakers François Prévost and Hugo Latulippe joined with Kalsang Dolma, a Tibetan exile living in Quebec, to bring a message from the exiled Dalai Lama to ordinary Tibetans. Dolma smuggled into Tibet videotape containing a message from the Tibetan spiritual leader urging his people to be true to the Buddhist ideals of compassion for your enemies and to continue their peaceful resistance. Participants were warned that there might be potential persecution for those who watched the video if the Chinese authorities should obtain the film and recognize them. Dolma takes the tape to peasant farmers and urban laborers (even including sex trade workers), with families and friends crowded around the tiny screen, as many see an image of the Dalai Lama for the first time.

Some cry, others pray, many shake, and all at first are unable to speak. When they do, some offer expressions of joy, some hope, others cynicism and despair, but all express gratitude to the Dalai Lama. What Remains of Us is not just another special plea for an oppressed minority. It is a powerful experience that could be just as true for Native Americans, indigenous Canadians, or members of any languages and cultures threatened by the onslaught of globalization. The film allows us to understand not only how much Tibetans have los,t but how much of our own humanity is in danger if indigenous cultures disappear. We may have to ask the question: What remains of us? to ourselves.

In Travellers and Magicians, Tibetan Buddhist director Khyentse Norbu spins two parallel stories that deliver one message: happiness can be discovered simply by being in the present moment. Picking up from his internationally acclaimed feature, The Cup, Norbu's second film is filled with gentle humor, gorgeous scenery and music, and astute observations on the foibles of human nature. The film was shot entirely in Dzongkha, Bhutan, a tiny country of 700,000 people in Central Asia. Norbu assembled a cast of non-actors, including a monk, a banking executive, and a government researcher, and all perform with distinction.

Dondup (played by former Bhutan producer Tshewang Dendup), a young government officer working in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, longs for a more exciting life in America. He wears Nikes, sports a T-shirt that says I love New York, listens to rock music on his portable stereo, and has walls cluttered with pictures of scantily clad Caucasian women. He says he would rather pick apples in America than continue to live in his isolated village. When Dondup receives a letter he has been waiting for, he packs his suitcases and sets off for greener pastures, but misses the bus and is forced to hitch a ride on the mountain road. There he meets other travelers: an aged apple peddler, a Buddhist monk, a rice paper seller, and the paper seller's lovely nineteen-year old daughter. As they wait for the next vehicle to arrive, they listen to a story serenely told by the Buddhist monk.

In the fable, the restless Tashi (Lhakpa Dorji) is tricked by his brother into entering a world of magic and illusion. Leaving his village on a magic horse, he becomes lost in the woods, but is rescued by an old farmer. When he discovers his passion for the farmer's seductive young wife Deki (Deki Yangzom), he must deal with dark emotions beyond his experience.

Travellers and Magicians has a natural beauty and charm, and tells an important message -- that we can be very happy just by being aware of and handling what is in front of us. As the poet Shakyamuni put it, "One who…clearly grasps the present deepens his state of life." The film allows us a glimpse of the natural wonders of a pristine land before, as Norbu says, "there are 200 McDonalds, 100 Burger Kings, 100 Starbucks, 50 KFCs, polluted water, and deforestation."

Adapted by Robert and Eileen Bassing from Eileen's novel of the same name, Mervyn LeRoy's 1958 masterpiece Home Before Dark is a devastating, yet remarkably liberating exploration of a woman's struggle to achieve mental health. I first saw this film many years ago and I never forgot the towering performance of Jean Simmons or the film's shattering emotional truth: that some people are simply incapable of showing compassion to those who are vulnerable. I was able to revisit it again this week, and it flooded my mind with memories of those days of turmoil.

The film is set in an upwardly mobile neighborhood in suburban Massachusetts. Charlotte Bronn (Jean Simmons), the wife of a college professor (Dan O'Herlihy), has long suspected that her husband is secretly in love with her stepsister (Rhonda Fleming). She is unable to confront the fact that her husband doesn't love her, and slips into mental illness. After one year in treatment, she is released, but goes back to face the same nagging suspicions and the same well-meaning but overbearing people, including her sister Joan, stepmother Inez (Mabel Albertson), and housekeeper Mattie (Kathryn Card). Charlotte does have some support, however, in the person of Jacob Diamond (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.), a visiting professor who is living with the family for one semester and has to confront antisemitic innuendos at the college.

Diamond reaches out to Charlotte and provides some much-needed kindness, but she has difficulty gathering the emotional strength to accept his support. She continues to blame herself for her illness, and clings to the notion that her previous suspicions were delusions. Still unsteady and trying to please everybody, she buys a dress that doesn't fit and has her hair done to look like her stepsister Joan, then shows up at a dinner party and goes out of control. Little by little, however, Charlotte begins to muster the strength to confront the truth, and the payoff is deliciously worth the wait.

Sadly, the original negative of this great film has been lost, and it may never be released on DVD, a loss not only to cinema buffs but to a world needing an injection of love and inspiration.

©2004 Howard Schumann
CineScene