Review of Wheel of Time (2003) by Tom B — 09 Jun 2010

We were soothed watching this, and laughed a lot, at the humor of the people in the film, as well as Herzog's own sense of play, always evident in his films. There's not much else to say about it.

400, 000 Tibetans doing things like prostrating themselves for three-and-a-half years across thousands of miles of land, scrambling to get a piece of sacred barley dumplings, making huge vats of tea, carrying yak dung and bellows to make their little fires around the base of Mount Kailish.

Then we go to Austria and watch a bunch of Westerners in an conference hall while the Dalai Lama, himself a very funny fellow, leads us through the same procedure of making the mandala, though under different circumstances, recovered from an illness, with troupe of bodyguards on hand.

At center of film, the building of a sacred mandala out of sand, the wheel of time, painstakingly created, brushed aside at the end in seconds, disposed of in the river. Herzog has a keen eye for natural mysteries, and the crowds of people doing what they do is reminiscent of Malle's documentaries on India.

The camera floats among a sea of human beings, faces and bodies, observing behaviors that are mysterious, and natural, wondrous, and often funny. And fun. Lovely stuff Werner, we love your movies.