Thinking a Little About Buddhist Movies

There is a tiny but growing oeuvre of Buddhist themed film available here in the West. Right off the top I think of Hollywood blockbusters like Seven Years in Tibet,

Kundun

and Little Buddha (my favorite of these, but for which at this moment I cannot find a trailer…).

It is interesting these big flicks illustrate Tibetan Buddhist themes, particularly the idea of rebirth which in the Tibetan telling and the Hollywood interpretations looks a lot like reincarnation, a controversial perspective in a religion that adamantly denies the existence of a continuing “soul.”

There are smaller movies of a Buddhist turn, available, as well. Almost all produced in other languages.

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring is a very good example.

Another is Why Has Bodhidharma Left for the East. (For which sadly, I cannot find a trailer…)

Of course, there’s less Buddhism in these than someone like me might want, particularly the Hollywood films. But, still, entertaining, and occasionally illuminating…

By the bye, my favorite of these consciously Buddhist inspired movies has to be Enlightenment Guaranteed.

In some ways more interesting for me are movies that were not made to be Buddhist but are embraced within the Buddhist community as touching upon important themes. Of course with each of these movies there are those who find Buddhism and those who don’t. I rather enjoy that nearly as much as the movies themselves…

For instance Up, which has tickled many western Buddhists who point out how it touches upon the important Buddhist teaching that you cannot cling to what has passed… (The trailer isn’t available for embedding, but you can see it going here)

Another that some find to be Buddhist (I don’t, I think it classically gnostic, but I see why some do…) is the Matrix.

Possibly the first movie of this kind that weren’t actually made to illustrate Buddhist principles, but did, and has become enormously popular among the Buddhist viewing public is Groundhog Day

Others are called by some “Buddhist” but in doing so only reveal their ignorance of Buddhism. I think here particularly of What the Bleep Do We Know, which attempts to illustrate a New Thought principle through a torturous reframing of quantum physics…

And some are controversial, but are nonetheless arguably Buddhist or Buddhist like or neo Buddhist. Here I think of the Big Lebwoski, touted most notably by the Zen teacher Bernie Glassman. Several women practitioners I know suggest, however, this is a pretty adolescent (and male?) version of the Zen and Taoist themes of Wei Wu Wei. I have to admit, they’re right, and, I have to admit, I really liked it…

While Bleep misses the mark by a mile, another movie released to much less fanfare at about the same time, I (heart) Huckabees really does, by my lights, hit the Buddhist mark.

There are more, of course.

And still more to come.

It will, no doubt, all be interesting…