If you don’t know much about the Dalai Lama, 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama is a reasonably good introduction. If you have read a couple of his books or a biography, this documentary will seem mundane, and you’ll have to pick out what gems you can. One point was particularly valuable for me. While I’d long known the outrage over the Chinese invasion of Tibet, I never got too excited about it myself, but the documentary’s low-key talk of a million Tibetans killed hit home. Then when the exiled Dalai Lama appointed a Tibetan boy to be somewhat like his successor, the boy and his family disappeared, presumably moved and under house arrest by the Chinese. When there is talk of “cultural genocide,” I have a better appreciation of what it means.
That said, the ten questions film-maker Rick Ray poses to the Dalai Lama in the second half of the documentary are pedestrian. How can you remain non-violent in the face of violence? I predicted the Dalai Lama would say you occasionally have to defend yourself in order to live to fight non-violently another day, and he does. What is the solution for religious conflict such as in the Middle East? I thought the Dalai Lama would say something about the individual rather than the state, and he recommends Moslems and Jews get to know each other on a personal level before more formal negotiations. And so on. 10 Questions may have been more interesting if Rick Ray had shown us the intimidating process he went through to select his questions. After all, he is given just 45 minutes, warned that the Dalai Lama will cut the interview short if the questions and the questioner are not coming from the heart, and aware that he is opening up in front of one of the world’s great spiritual leaders. What ten questions would you ask?! The film would have been stronger if it had forced us to consider that question.
The film may also have been more interesting if writer/director Ray had decided to ask one question and nine follow-up questions. For example: Q. How can you remain non-violent in the face of violence? A. Sometimes you have to defend yourself in order to survive to fight non-violently another day. Q. When you do remain non-violent, how do you get the strength to do so? A. [Dalai Lama’s answer.] Q. How do you decide when to “defend yourself”? A. [Dalai Lama’s answer.] Q. You mentioned that non-violence is inherently a better approach, but why is it better? A. [Dalai Lama’s answer.] And so on. Exploring one topic in depth would probably have produced a more interesting film for viewers who know something of Buddhism and the Dalai Lama, and it may even have created a more interesting experience for novitiates because the specific is often more engrossing than the general.
posted on Sunday, February 03, 2008 12:49 PM by JimBell