Friday, October 12, 2007

"Milarepa: Magician, Murderer, Saint," a picturesque fable filmed in the mountains of northern India, shows us how most -- if not all -- roads to spiritual enlightenment are paved with suffering.

Set in the 11th century, this Tibetan film retells the story of Thopaga, an impoverished villager who would eventually became the enlightened Milarepa, one of Tibet's most revered saints. But his path to bliss followed a traumatic chapter marked with tragedy, injustice, vengeful sorcery and the destruction of his village.

When his affluent father dies, young Thopaga (Jamyang Lodro, who played a soccer-crazy monk in Khyentse Norbu's charming 1999 film "Phorpa," a.k.a. "The Cup"), along with his family, is forced to live with his scheming uncle and aunt. Instead of honoring the dying man's wishes to bequeath his money and house to Thopaga when he turns 21, the uncle refuses. Dispatched by his now-destitute mother, Thopaga learns the ways of black magic from a mystic. But he learns that retribution compounds, rather than solves, injustice.

First-time director Neten Chokling (who played the other soccer fan in "Phorpa") combines old-time lore with modest special effects to evoke this otherworldly story. But what really reaches us is the collective presence of the cast, most of them monks and other acting amateurs. They seem uniformly imbued with inherent grace and effortless spiritual bearing. And their smallest of gestures exude the kind of un-self-conscious gravitas that constitutes all fables.

-- Desson Thomson

Milarepa: Magician, Murderer, Saint PG, 90 minutes Contains disturbing images. In Tibetan with subtitles. At Landmark's E Street Cinema. Milarepa: Magician, Murderer, Saint PG, 90 minutes Contains disturbing images. In Tibetan with subtitles. At Landmark's E Street Cinema.