Taken strictly as a docu about a key Buddhist ritual, Wheel of Time is a perfectly pleasant, educational film, featuring pretty pictures, exotic locations and interview footage with the Dalai Lama himself. As a Werner Herzog film, it's flat and disappointing.
Wheel of Time(Rad der Zeit)
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Germany, Austria, Italy · 2003
1h 20m
Director Werner Herzog
Starring Tenzin Gyatso, Lama Lhundup Woeser, Takna Jigme Sangpo, Matthieu Ricard
Genre Documentary
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Werner Herzog’s immersive documentary depicts the beautiful ritual of the sand mandala, a Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and destruction of intricate images made from colored sand. The film also includes a personal interview between Herzog and the Dalai Lama, as well as the pilgrimage at Mount Kailash.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Riveting and unique.
Patient and fascinated, but never succumbing to abstraction, Wheel of Time can be seen as the middle installment of a trilogy against nature.
Mesmerizing.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
The movie might as well have been called "An Immersion in Tibetan Buddhism." With minimal explanation, it puts you right in the center.
Call it a spiritual Woodstock.
San Francisco Chronicle by Walter Addiego
Mesmerizing documentary.
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