-->
Despite its tedious title, ‘10 Questions’ is anything but a tedious film By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS NY Times News Service, NEW YORK When the filmmaker Rick Ray arrived in India to direct a travel video, an interview with the Dalai Lama was supposed to be part of his compensation. When he discovered that he would have to arrange it himself, he did, by e-mail. The result is 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama, a tedious title for an anything-but-tedious film. Expertly merging the mystical and the mundane, Ray presents a warm and well-rounded portrait of his subject, his Buddhist philosophies and the painful circumstances of his exile to a modest monastery in Dharamsala, India. Though it touches on Tibet and China’s discordant political history (with amazing archival film and an interview with a former Chinese political prisoner), the movie is more charmed by the Dalai Lama’s personality than by his politics. Impish, self-deprecating and an infectious giggler, he is an unorthodox spiritual exemplar with an insatiable scientific curiosity. (“When science contradicts faith, he’s prone to choose science,” Ray marvels.) This 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama would rather be reading about neuroscience than enduring a festival in his honor. As for Ray’s questions, his interviewee doesn’t hold back, whether discussing his environmentalism or the outmoded Indian caste system. He even ventures onto the thin ice of birth control. “Quality is more important than quantity!” is his emphatic opinion. Mother Teresa might have had something to say about that. | |
FILM NOTES 10 QUESTIONS FOR THE DALAI LAMA DIRECTED BY: Rick Ray STARRING: The Dalai Lama RUNNING TIME: 85 MINUTES TAIWAN RELEASE: TODAY
| |
PHOTO COURTESY OF DOUBLE EDGE ENTERTAINMENT | PHOTO COURTESY OF DOUBLE EDGE ENTERTAINMENT |
PHOTO COURTESY OF DOUBLE EDGE ENTERTAINMENT |
PHOTO COURTESY OF DOUBLE EDGE ENTERTAINMENT
|
PHOTO COURTESY OF DOUBLE EDGE ENTERTAINMENT
|
PHOTO COURTESY OF DOUBLE EDGE ENTERTAINMENT
|
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and