''Himalaya: Caravan'' (french: Himalaya: L'Enfance d'un chef) is a 1999 Nepali film directed by
Éric Valli
Éric Valli (born 1952, in Dijon, France) is a French photographer and film director.
Valli specializes in mountain scenery and is an expert on the Himalaya Mountains. In 1999 he directed the adventure film '' Caravan'' about survival in the Hi ...
and was funded through based in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
corporations. It was the first
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
ese film to be nominated in the
Best Foreign Film
The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...
category at the
72nd Academy Awards
The 72nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored films released in 1999 and took place on March 26, 2000, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST ...
.
The film is a narrative on both the traditions and the impermanent nature of human struggle to retain and express power in the face of the gods. "''The gods' triumph''" is the call that echoes at the end of the film and expresses the balancing of karmic destinies. The extreme environment of the Himalayas is magnificently contrasted to the delicacy of humanity and the beauty of
Tibetan culture
Tibet developed a distinct culture due to its geographic and climatic conditions. While influenced by neighboring cultures from China, India, and Nepal, the Himalayas, Himalayan region's remoteness and inaccessibility have preserved distinc ...
.
The film depicts not only the life style of the
upper Dolpo people of the
mid western uphills of Nepal but also their traditional customs, for example
celestial burial
Sky burial (, "bird-scattered") is a funeral practice in which a human corpse is placed on a mountaintop to decompose while exposed to the elements or to be eaten by scavenging animals, especially carrion birds. It is a specific type of the ...
.
''Himalaya'' was shot in widescreen over nine months on location in a region that can only be reached on foot, with all but two characters played by real chiefs, lamas and local villagers. Director Éric Valli has lived in Nepal since 1983 and is also a photographer and author. His work is regularly published in National Geographic Magazine , GEO magazine and
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...
magazines.
Plot
Himalaya is a story set against the backdrop of the Nepalese
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...
. At an altitude of five thousand metres in the remote mountain region of
Dolpa
Dolpa District ( ne, :ne:डोल्पा जिल्ला, डोल्पा जिल्ला), is a district, located in Karnali Province of Nepal, It is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal and one of ten district of Karnali. Th ...
, Himalaya is the story of villagers who take a caravan of
yaks across the mountains, carrying
rock salt
Halite (), commonly known as rock salt, is a type of salt, the mineral (natural) form of sodium chloride ( Na Cl). Halite forms isometric crystals. The mineral is typically colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, pi ...
from the high plateau down to the lowlands to trade for grain.
At the beginning of the film, Lhakpa, the heir to the chieftainship of the tribe is revealed to have died in a botched attempt to navigate a shortcut.
An annual event, the caravan provides the grain that the villagers depend on to survive the winter. The film unfolds as a story of rivalry based on misunderstanding and distrust, between the aging chief, Tinle, and the young daring herdsman, Karma, who is both a friend and a rival to the chief's family, as they struggle for leadership of the caravan. The elders of the tribe assert that Karma should lead the caravan in the absence of Lhakpa, but Tinle objects and insists that someone else should lead the caravan.
Karma, seeking to prove himself as a worthy leader, departs a few days before the scheduled departure of the caravan, leaving behind only the youngest and oldest members of the tribe. Karma's relatives plead with Karma not to leave as leaving before the scheduled departure of the caravan was seen as deceitful. Karma does not heed this warning, and soon the elders of the tribe congregate to determine which households still had remaining salt. Tinle decides to lead the remainder of the community in a caravan with the remaining salt, recruiting his monastic son, Norbou, to join his endeavours, on the original set day of departure. Tinle soon catches up with Karma's caravan, despite Karma having taken a shortcut and having left days earlier. Tinle asserts his leadership, and Karma acts as a role model to Tinle's grandson Tserin. Tinle predicts an oncoming snowstorm and immediately commands the caravan to depart immediately, which Karma refutes as the sky is clear. Karma stays behind as Tinle and the rest of the caravan departs.
When the snowstorm sets, Tinle grows weary and exhausted, and in ensuring that the caravan is remaining a cohesive unit, Tinle collapses in the snow. Karma arrives, having realized his mistake, and carries Tinle to the front of the caravan. The caravan is successful in reaching a landmark and survives the snowstorm, but Tinle collapses at the landmark, asking to be left to die. The leaders of the caravan agree, indicating that Tinle, as masters of the mountains, should honor his wishes to peacefully pass away in the mountains rather than the flatlands.
The film ends with Tinle's monastic son, Norbou, honoring the legacy of Tinle by painting a monastery wall with the caravan's adventures.
Characters
*
Thinle Lhondup as Tinle, elderly village leader
* Lhakpa as Tinle's son and present heir
* Tserin / Passang as Tinle's grandson and future heir
*
Lhakpa Tsamchoe
Lhakpa Tsamchoe (born 1972) is a Tibetan actress from India. She is the first Tibetan woman ever to break into mainstream film; most famous for starring alongside Brad Pitt and David Thewlis in the 1997 Hollywood blockbuster '' Seven Years i ...
as Pema, Lhakpa's wife
* Norbou as Tinle's monastic son
* Karma as rival leader to the Tinle clan
Reception
It has a metacritic score of 73, with mostly positive reviews.
SBS gave the film 3.5/5, saying that "The story of ''Himalaya'' is a timeless one. French director Eric Valli tells it like a legend, and it's one he knows well", and that it is "It's a simple but quite affecting saga".
See also
*
Himalayan salt
Himalayan salt is rock salt (halite) mined from the Punjab region of Pakistan. The salt, which often has a pinkish tint due to trace minerals, is primarily used as a food additive to replace refined table salt but is also used for cooking and fo ...
*
Tibet-Nepal salt trade route
* ''
The Saltmen of Tibet''
References
External links
*
{{Nepal submission for Academy Awards
1999 films
1990s adventure films
1999 drama films
Nepali-language films
Films set in Nepal
Films shot in Nepal
1990s German-language films
Tibetan-language films
Films scored by Bruno Coulais
1999 multilingual films
Nepalese multilingual films
Films directed by Éric Valli