Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Cosmoeticadotcom What is it about middle aged white mean and their sudden love of Orientalism (or jazz, for that matter)? Is it a midlife crisis? This thought came to me watching Werner Herzog's 2003 documentary Wheel Of Time. The best thing I can say of the film is that it would make for a solid PBS film by a typical documentary director, but coming from a master of cinema, like Herzog, it's a profound disappointment. Why? There simply is nothing more to this film than Herzog filming the mundane goings on at a trio of Buddhist festivals in 2002, and acting as if peasants trekking about a mountain (Mount Kailash in Tibet), monks painting mandalas with colored sand, and white Austrians rapt with Orientalism, were supposed to lend some deep insight into the cosmic goings on. At least, that is what can be taken from Herzog's narration of the film.Too often the film is hermetic; its rituals are regarded, but no explanation is proffered, not from an anthropological nor narrative perspective. The acts of prostration, as example, become mere sideshow carny acts to the watcher of this film, and never impart any sense of admiration for the devotees, because they are unreal, in many ways, never fully part of the vital reality of the film. Similarly, we see children in monk robes, yet Herzog never queries how such children really feel about being drafted into their family's business, something I once asked a young Buddhist monk. All in all, Wheel Of Time is a solid film, fairly straight forward, and nothing remotely approaching his earlier, greater films. Perhaps the most telling thing is that Werner Herzog made a merely solid film; that's how damned good a film craftsman he is. No, I'm wrong; even worse than making a solid film is the fact that the faux reverential Herzog mad a non-Herzogian film. Let's just hope Herzog is never smitten with John Coltrane nor Charlie Parker. That would not be merely solid, but brutally painful. Goodbye, Dalai!

chaos-rampant In his film My Son, My Son, his protagonist taunts a student meditating on a rock facing a river, telling him to open his eyes, that reality is out there. I was cautious of this, Herzog's encounter not with a simple madness but with an ancient, complex, beautiful point of view, but cautiously optimistic, curious.We know that Herzog seeks truths in the extremities of life, in the madness that inhabits them. He often guides these subjects to be what he wants them to be, which is his personal reflection that we may find a more eloquent, resilient truth in what deviates rather than what abides, but his visual meditations are tried and true. True enough that Malick, a trobadour himself, has taken from them.But is he merely a tourist in this, the Kalachakra initiation, a Westerner with a camera strapped around his neck approaching sacred ground with idle curiosity, or does he come in earnest, perhaps to learn? He shows us the pilgrims travelling the thousands of miles to Bodh Gaya on foot, stopping every couple of steps on this journey that takes as much as three years for one of them, to prostrate themselves on the ground. He says nothing of this but there's no doubt in my mind on why he handpicks them among the crowds. They have a good story of spiritual struggle to tell, perhaps itself a form of holy madness. Elsewhere his camera prowls through a crowd of monks, in the end selectively settling upon the most mysterious face he could find.There's one moment however in his meeting with the H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama that brilliantly reveals the chasm between these two worlds. Asked about it, the Dalai Lama explains to him what he believes to be the center of the universe, inside of each one of us, doing this with the goodhearted laugh that characterizes him. Mistaking this radiance of equanimity and happiness for an attempt at humour, Herzog quips back that he shouldn't tell his wife about this. The moment follows an awkward pause of silence and a dumbfounded look by the DL.The above incident, which may reflect badly on him from a formal point but still reflects something, he chose to keep on the film as both a way of undercutting a solemnity he perhaps sees as banal and of showing how far the two cultures are. Herzog may be a stranger here but he's still a talented filmmaker.And more. The uproar of the pilgrims, how they prepare food and tea for the monks, how they crowd for a good view of the Dalai Lama, he contrasts with the booming silence inside the sanctum, punctured repetitively by the sounds of monks at work on the great sand mandala, the representation of the cosmos.This is one of the beautiful contrasts of the film. How the superstition of the peasants, who clamor for a crumble of a sacred dumpling thought to be a blessing, with the complex philosophical discussions on concepts of emptiness held openly among the monks elsewhere.What do the simple folks who came down for this from Nepal understand of shunyata? What do we, in turn, understand of the spiritual importance of performing 100,000 asanas, sun salutations? And what does the Dalai Lama understand of the superstitions he practices in the ceremony, of dropping sticks to see where they may land as pointing into a direction? Nevertheless, even a man of his own ideas like Herzog leaves this with newfound wisdom, with the potential to enrich us in turn. We get three unforgettable images in the end, all meditatios I will keep inside of me.How the great sand mandala upon which the Tibetan monks worked tirelessly day and night is eventually destroyed, a palpable reminder of how all things come to pass. The different colored sands brushed aside blend together into abstract shape without pattern or meaning now, to be poured then into the river where after a time they will perhaps wash out in some distant shore.In Graz, Austria, a security man stands guard in an almost empty hall, guarding nothing from nothing. The self, a barrier to our awareness.And back again in Bodh Gaya, the ceremony now over, we see the hundreds of thousands of empty pillows left over by the pilgrims lining the floor. In the middle of this emptiness kneels alone one last monk, lost in meditation.

Pawan Jha "Each of us is truly the center of the universe"This is what is said by Dalia Lama, when he is asked about Mount Kailash, a mountain that is considered to be in the center of universe as per Buddhist & Hindu tradition.Wheel of time is a film which portrait traditional Buddhists initiation ceremony. Hundred thousand of pilgrimage gathers at Bodh-Gaya & Mount Kailash in India and also somewhere in Austria to perform spiritual duties. Herzog successfully portrays the insights of these individuals. Director depicted the insight of their faiths by interviewing them or just by using hollow background scores with penetrating camera angles.Herzog have his own surreal way of shooting landscapes, however don't expect much if you are a hard core Herzogian, but it is recommended.

dbborroughs This is the story of the Buddhist initiation ceremonies held in 2002 in India and in Austria during which elaborate sand mandalas (the Wheel of Time of the title) were created. In India we see how half a million pilgrims come from what ever means was at their disposal to come and see the Dalai Lama and be blessed, while in Austria a few thousand people attended the ceremonies.Difficult to adequately explain fully, the film, part document of the events, part meditation on them and on larger ideas. It is a film that beautifully shows how one religion can transcend place and time. It attempts to show us the length to which the pilgrims will go in order to travel down the path to enlightenment. Since this is a trip that is only really traveled deep inside oneself Werner Herzog keeps his camera ever moving over the landscape of the people who are trying to find nirvana. We are forever looking at the faces of those deep in prayer and meditation as if we might be able to find some clue as to what is going on deep with in each persons soul. It becomes a mediation on meditation.For the most part this film works wonderfully. It manages to give some clue into the very nature of what the ceremonies are all about. We are also drawn into a contemplative and meditative state that seems akin or to approximate those of some of the pilgrims. While certainly not the real thing it is enough to give one a feel for deep thought.I do have one problem with the film, and its a minor one, in the central section the film seems to wander about too much with some of the pilgrims. Its a personal thing but I was not as enthralled with the journey to the sacred mountain, and I did get a bit tired of prostrating monks. Its a minor thing, but it decreased my enjoyment of the film ever so slightly.Still this is good film that is a must see for anyone who is interested in Buddhism or the varieties of religious experience. For those who want to see a slice of life thats not in their neighborhood, I also recommend it. 7 out of 10 because the reaction to it will as varied as the audience.