''Wheel of Time'' is a 2003
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
about
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
by German director
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with un ...
. The title refers to the Kalachakra
sand mandala
Sand mandala (; ) is a Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and destruction of mandalas made from colored sand. Once complete, the sand mandala's ritualistic Art destruction, dismantling is accompanied by ceremo ...
that provides a recurring image for the film.
Content
The film documents the two
Kalachakra initiations of 2002, presided over by the
fourteenth Dalai Lama
The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...
. The first, in
Bodhgaya India, was disrupted by the Dalai Lama's illness. Later that same year, the event was held again, this time without disruption, in
Graz
Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
. The film's first location is the
Bodhgaya, the site of the
Mahabodhi Temple and the
Bodhi tree. Herzog then turns to the
pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
at
Mount Kailash
Mount Kailash (also Kailasa; ''Kangrinboqê'' or ''Gang Rinpoche''; Standard Tibetan, Tibetan: གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ; ; sa, कैलास, ), is a mountain in the Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It h ...
, after which the film then focuses on the second gathering in Graz.
Herzog includes a personal interview with the Dalai Lama,
as well as Tibetan former political prisoner
Takna Jigme Zangpo
Takna Jigme Sangpo (; 1926 – 17 October 2020) was the longest-serving political prisoner of Tibetan people, Tibetan ethnicity, having spent 37 years in a prison near Lhasa.
Life
First imprisoned in 1965, he was released from prison on a medical ...
, who served 37 years in a
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
prison for his support of the
International Tibet Independence Movement
The International Tibet Independence Movement (ITIM) is a non-profit organization, founded on 18 March 1995, that supports Tibetan independence from the People's Republic of China:
:"only independence for Tibet can ensure the survival of the Tibe ...
.
References
External links
*
Documentary films about Buddhism
Films shot in Austria
Films shot in Bihar
2003 films
2003 documentary films
Films directed by Werner Herzog
{{reli-documentary-film-stub