Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

IMDBcinephile I read a review on here saying that he was no Scorsese or film student and generally a cineaste. In other words, he thought that one could only enjoy the film if they analyse and explicate it as opposed to absorb it. I respect that he flouts it for a lack of entertainment, but generally speaking this film doesn't need a large overlook or analysis (though that can explain elements such as the sheep mask and the way in which they 'insert swords to pasture the sheep). What we must remember is that we're entering another world that is foreign to those in the western world. The film warrants a high score anyway. Supposedly the year and period is set in 1923 as the prelude purports, but actually this was stipulated to be set in the time frame. Tian says that there's no necessity for a time period and that the film should be seen as a film without a period, as though it's pervasive. But taking this into consideration the film uses an old style; it's shot on celluloid, it's very visual compositions along with superimposition's and montages, which almost resemble the Rocky series, so the film is definitely a product of its time. But the truth still remains about the narrative within.The main character (it says his name is Luobur on my DVD, but this site says his name is Norbu, but either way he's the focal character) has a son, Zhaxi, who in the beginning of the film has already died to due to illness and then gets devoured by birds, as a formation of religious men bat a ball as though it's a chime and his body gets taken up into the ether; this scene proved to be heavily controversial in China, but fascinating over here. Then we go into a descent of this landscape, where Norbu has to fend for himself and eventually cuts the strap of a horse to sell for his own needs. The film has a ponderous lapsing, such as when the tribal chief's father dies, and it's in this instance that the film absorbs us and shows us how the human condition affects the spectre as it sacredly goes in the sky... Norbu has to look after his other son and we see how he raises it by the little drips of water he picks up from the rain and how they bathe in the water to overcompensate for the fact they have no bath. Dolma (on my Chinese DVD, it says a different name wholly, but I'll disregard this) starts to fend for herself as the silhouetted world shows. Sometimes the film chronicles the incandescent lighting and ambient naturalistic light that creates an unknown dynamism in film.One of my favourite parts is when he looks over the tribe as they chant. Now being unaccustomed to the Tibet traditions, I became increasingly interested in the way they looked at things, masquerading their faces with what either seems like sheep, calf or, appropriately, a horse. It's the emotional intensity that gets me with these moments that transpire. Tian tends to soar his score in for dramaturgical effect or better yet use the sounds of the people around to break it. For example, when Norbu comes to take a body into the water, he gets stoned along with the body and though he doesn't die, it leaves a rather perplexing effect. It can either be a negative energy or a positive energy.There's actually only one graphic moment craning on a sheep getting slaughtered while the bereft Norbet lies out there in the cold shunned. It could be looked at as dispensable and graphic, but I look at it as a day in this individuals life. Tian, as has been said, was avant garde in making a documentary-esque film set to the backdrop of tumultuous times and beautifully lit mountains with lots of sacred iconography, which end up becoming too breathtaking with its superimposition's and the lost hope into the abyss of time.The film is slow (a caveat and to reference the beginning of this review), but wholly overwhelming. It sometimes can inundate you with drama and melodrama that proves to be insignificant, such as when the chief's Father dies and so forth. But in the end, I felt like being in the eyes of a film maker in progress. It sometimes feels meditated at times as well. A cultural film that can be ignored (only by those not interested in film-making) or can be looked at as a textbook at the instigating film. Tian said it was more about image then plot, character and story and though this may be a defect to the country he's in (In 1993, he made Blue Kite, which put him in exile for a decade, so... his images certainly were omnipotent anyway), it still sprawls over to a new culture like Yasujiro Ozu, Kenji or Akira Kurosawa; it just demands that you have the temerity to speak it with such vision. A scary insight into an eerily harrowing landscape that I have never entered, but can look at through this well done film.

smrana9377-831-371630 This is a movie about human beings living in the stark and pitiless land of Tibet. Tibetans have a clear if not too numerous a presence in North India and I always felt deeply curious about these strangers from a land not too distant yet strange and mysterious. My first memories of these people are of tattered nomads moving in groups. Today they are educated, vocal and have prospered economically on Indian soil.The present film is like a response to an inborn craving to visit this land.It is set in 1923, thus steering clear of political controversies in China, of which Tibet is now a part. Tibet is the highest plateau in the world, with an average altitude of 16,000 feet. Going by this film, it also seems the most wind blown place. The mists are always floating swiftly away and the pennants planted near temples fluttering noisily like an array of weathercocks. I cannot remember any movie with such splendor of cinematography, not even David Lean at his best. It is a world of transcendent beauty. There is nothing of the picture postcard tailor's dummy prettiness. The azure mountains, snow deserts and water bodies live and breathe as though with the presence of stern deities. The musical score , comprising natural sounds, muffled incantations and a continuous drone punctuated with funereal beats of percussion unspoken script or reverent commentary on this extra terrestrial world.Norbu is a poor member of a nomadic tribe. He has a wife and small boy to support. Though devout he is forced into stealing horses for survival. He is expelled from his group under sentence of amputation if he should return. The film follows his journey through different regions in the course of which he loses his son to disease and sires another one. Religion and ceremonies dominate the life of these simple minded and plainspoken folk. Probably they need this belief as a necessity in their lives with death and starvation constantly dangling over them. Norbu is a god fearing person and it is only to save his offspring from the jaws of starvation that he is driven to stealing. He contributes a good part of his "earnings" to the temple.Both the mood and the score is reminiscent of Tarkovsky's Stalker. These snow blown mountains and deserts are also inhabited by a mysterious presence hinting at realities other than the familiar. The word mesmeric applied to this film is not a cliché but an accurate description of it's power.At the end of the day, people are the same--in Tibet, Calcutta or in the US.

Michael Neumann This Chinese feature presents an impressive but challenging adventure for the more discriminating fans of Third World cinema, although the episodic, non-verbal style might seem to some even more remote than the high Tibetan plateaus where it was shot. There's a token storyline about a tribesman cast out from his clan for thievery, but the film is inclined more toward armchair anthropology, capturing the cryptic and obscure customs of the native Tibetans and the harsh conditions that shape their fate. Some of the cheap dubbing tends to blunt the film's impact, but at any rate the soundtrack is usually overwhelmed by the magnificent wide-screen photography, ushering the viewer into an isolated, alien world of soaring mountains and broad desert basins. This is a place where climate and terrain not only determine character, but are characters themselves: implacable, indifferent, and demanding.

Pierre Radulescu A Tibetan village living in its universe of traditions since ever. Harsh mountains, harsh storms and winds, flocks of vultures in the high among scarring clouds, or pretty close over herds. Villagers find their answers in rituals. Norbu is a horse thief, while a devout Buddhist. He robs from the shrine offerings, while giving most of his loot to the shrine. Banished from the community, he repents and seeks readmission. His first son dies, a second son is born, again he needs to steal horses.Dao Ma Zei (The Horse Thief), made by Tian Zhuang-Zhuang in 1986, tells us a story of such an elemental power that words are almost unnecessary. Chinese censors insisted that the first image of the movie should indicate a year, 1923, meaning that the story was long time before Communist era. Actually the story is timeless.It is, on my knowledge, only one other film director who spoke so forcefully about a universe of rituals and traditions: Parajanov. About the importance of the rituals, as a fundamental dimension of our system of values.Like Parajanov, Tian has a profound respect for traditional cultures. Both of them, Parajanov and Tian, leave rituals freely in their movies. No explanation is needed, the ritual speaks for itself.But it is more than that. Life is not only ritual. Life is destiny in the same time. You live within rituals, you live also within sin. This paradox of human condition, to live far from godhead, while within godhead. Norbu is a horse thief, a highwayman. He is also a devout Buddhist. Is here destiny? Or maybe is it that sin is also necessary in the divine order, together with rituals?