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HIMALAYA Send This Review to a Friend
Unless you are prepared to hop a plane, fly to Nepal and make your way up the Himalayan mountains to the remote 15,000-foot high village of Dolpo, the experience of seeing internationally-renowned author and photographer Eric Valli's exquisitely beautiful, majestic, and deeply involving film "Himalaya" is the closest substitute you can find. This is a magnificent movie, a cinematic and dramatic coup unlike any other. It was a foreign film Oscar nominee for 2000, which shows its exceptional credentials but is only an indication of the pleasures to be found.
"Himalaya," enhanced by the original music of Bruno Coulais, recounts the survival process in the Dolpo region, with its Tibetan religious and cultural influences, where caravans using yaks each year trek across the forbidding mountains to trade salt for the grain needed to exist. What develops is a tribal rivalry, when Tinle (Thinlen Lhondup) blames Karma (Gurgon Kyap) for the death of his son on one of the trading missions. The elderly Tinle, set on the old-fashioned ways of using rituals and dates dictated by tradition, and Karma, intent upon a more modern, presumably more reasoned approach to deciding when to embark upon the hazardous journey, face off in conflict.
Other key characters include Pema, the son's widow, played by the charming, convincing actress Lhapka Tsamschoe, who was seen in Jean-Jacques Annaud's film "Seven Years in Tibet." There is also Pema's young son Tsering (Karna Wangiel), whose grandfather believes he should grow up to lead the tribe.
The ensuing drama is played out in the script by Olivier Dazat, working in collaboration with others, including producer Jacques Perrin, but the overall accomplishment lies in the amazing production achievement, involving the use of various villagers as actors, working under difficult winter conditions with different crews and carrying through the bold conception in the face of the overwhelming challenge of shooting in the natural area. The result is an atmosphere-filled film that combines tense drama, strong character portraits, insight into customs and struggle, a respect for those whose lives are being captured for posterity in such rare footage and the visual delights of an unusual travel expedition.
Audiences can feel they are on the spot, with the dangers for humans and animals palpable, especially in one sequence when the menace of death by falling into a ravine looms from moment to moment. There is also a raging storm that the caravan must endure. "Himalaya" unfolds at a leisurely pace that enables viewers to be mentally transported from the confines of a theater into this remote, exotic location. A Kino International release.
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