Himalaya Review
by "Harvey S. Karten" (film_critic AT compuserve DOT com)February 18th, 2001
HIMALAYA -l'enfrance d'un chef
Reviewed by Harvey Karten
Kino International
Director: Eric Valli
Writer: Nathalie Azoulai
Cast: Lhapka Tsamchoe, Thilen Lhondup, Gurgon Kyap
Eric Valli, who directed this exotic work filmed entirely in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal, said in an interview that his movie is about a people entirely different from ourselves. This is not exactly true. Remember the power struggle between George W. Bush and Al Gore for who will be the person to whom we sing "Hail to the Chief"? The two principal characters in "Himalaya" are no different. Instead of fighting for who will live in the White House and make some fancy decisions about the economy, Tinle (Thilen Lhondup) and Karma (Gurgon Kyap) are two ethnic Tibetans engaged in the political battle of their lives: who will lead the next caravan from the Nepalese highlands to the lowlands to trade their salt for grain. You'd think: are they serious? They're fighting tooth and nail for the leadership of a corps of Tibetans and an assortment of yaks? To trade salt for grain? But when we think that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, that the pecking order throughout the animal kingdom often seems to be the paramount issue, this makes perfect sense. Add to this theme the concept that the fight between Tinle and Karma is part of the age-old tussle between age and youth, the former unwilling to give up its prerogatives until it drops, the latter insisting on the privileges of the rising star.
That the film looks like a few pages animated from a National Geographic article and that it deals with the northwestern Dolpo region of Nepal which is out of bounds for all those who do not speak the Tibetan language makes a case for "Himalaya" as compelling fare even if it were merely a travelogue. Its people are as poor as the denizens of Andrucha Waddington's film "Me You Them" which situated in the Bahia region of Brazil, and like those Porturguese- speaking people the Tibetans perhaps do not even know that they are poverty-stricken. Nor do they have time like us Westerners to get bored. They have their religion to inspire them, which amounts to a belief in many gods whose control of nature determines the ease or difficulty of the treks that they make to trade their foodstuffs. They have their regular struggle against nature to keep them busy. And they seem to have close family relationships, to genuinely care for one another and look out for the safety of all.
All but Tinle and Karma, that is, because Tinle (played by the actual chief of the group being filmed, Thilen Lhondup) blames young Karma for the death of his son, whose body is brought back from a recent trip across the mountains. Karma, for his part, puts the onus on the hapless man's lack of knowledge of the mountains and insists that he, Karma, is the one to lead the next caravan. Old Tinle correctly sees that were he to allow this, he would be giving up claims to leadership and so he after Karma leaves with his faction, Tinle takes off with his own yaks and his own followers-- essentially people who have always left only when the gods communicate that the weather will be OK. Despite a four-day lead by young Karma, Tinle is eager to catch up and in the film's most menacing scene, he leads his people and animals across a narrow, short-cut pass by a lake, even constructing a makeshift bridge that may or may not hold his devotees.
The suspense is certainly not of the Hollywood type but rests in our wondering whether Tinle's group will make it across the narrow pass, whether he will catch up with Karma, and whether Karma will in fact depose the old man and take over the leadership of the tribe. Though most of the cast are nonprofessionals, the ensemble turns in a performance so realistic and credible that we'd be hard put to tell the difference between the ringers and the regular guys. French director Eric Valli has profited from his seventeen years' stay in Nepal and brings to life his love for the village people of that romantic and wondrous country on the top of the world.
Not Rated. Running time: 104 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, [email protected]
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