The journey of an injured woman through the peaks of the Himalayas recounted in the Nepalese film Shambhala, premiered last week at the Berlinale, the Berlin film festival, becomes before our eyes an expedition of spiritual discovery and, despite appearances , in an itinerary of female emancipation in that context.
This is the plot: Pema – played by actress Thinley Lhamo – is a young woman from a remote village who marries in polyandry with three brothers, the youngest of whom is still a child. The eldest and main husband, Tashi, undertakes a commercial trip of several months to Lhasa, capital of Tibet, and soon Pema discovers that she is pregnant. The village boils with gossip accusing her of infidelity, and the rumors reach the ears of her absentee, who decides not to return. Then, the enamored Pema sets off in search of her accompanied by her intermediate husband, Karma, a husband who is actually nominal since he is a monk in a small Buddhist community. In the journey through a difficult landscape, the woman achieves a kind of self-discovery and liberation.
The Nepali film ‘Shambhala’ brought a feminine spiritual journey to the Berlinale, the Berlin film festival
“I grew up up there, and for people in the high mountains, travel is always part of life,” Nepalese director Min Bahadur Bham told us at the press conference to present the film in Berlin. Another issue is that filming in locations at 6,000 meters above sea level, with a majority of non-professional actors, became a great logistical challenge for the team.
It was truly comforting to see a film with a religious background like Shambhala, a word that “literally means ‘mythical heaven’, a place where there is no sadness, only happiness, freedom and love,” with a determined character like Pema, “an authentic and resistant, which challenges the social environment but at the same time tries to respect tradition,” said the filmmaker. In reality, he clarified, polyandry is increasingly less common in the region.
Actress Thinley Lhamo, in a scene from ‘Shambhala’
Aditya Basnet / Shooney Films
The film also confronts us Westerners with our own lack of knowledge of Buddhism, an ancient religion currently practiced by some 506 million people, the vast majority in Asia, and which we sometimes see blurred by the phenomenon of conversions of famous Hollywood actors. . Buddhism is actually very diverse and multifaceted. In some areas it is even more of a philosophy than a religion.
The belief system enlightened by the Indian prince Sidharta Gautama – who lived in the 5th or 6th centuries BC in present-day India and Nepal – developed over time into three major branches: Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana, the latter also known as Buddhism. tantric. Prince Sidharta took the name Buddha – which in Sanskrit means enlightened – after overcoming all kinds of temptations to reach the state of enlightenment or true knowledge. According to Buddhist tradition, this state came upon him one night while meditating while sitting under a fig tree.
Vajrayana Buddhism, the one most identified with Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama, is what is practiced in Nepal, a country of 30.8 million inhabitants where, in fact, it is not the majority religion. The predominant faith is Hinduism (81.3%), followed at a great distance by Buddhism (9%), Islam (4.4%), Christianity (1.4%) and various Asian faiths (5%), according to the annual report on religious freedom of the United States Department of State.
Shambhala tries to reflect, according to its director, the current tensions in Nepalese society in matters such as love, marriage and religion, and at the same time show the relevance of the inner journey in people. Let’s hope that the film is distributed in Spain.
2024-03-03 01:09:55
#Buddhism #cinema #MaríaPaz #López
