Wheel of Time
Wheel of Time
| 30 October 2003 (USA)
Wheel of Time Trailers

Wheel of Time is Werner Herzog's photographed look at the largest Buddhist ritual in Bodh Gaya, India.

Reviews
Hellen

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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Sexyloutak

Absolutely the worst movie.

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Juana

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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Philippa

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

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Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)

"Wheel of Time" is an almost 15-year-old, German movie by writer and director Werner Herzog and it was a bit of a return back to his roots as documentaries were how it all started for him several decades ago. This documentary only runs for 80 minutes, but still delivers in terms of content and atmosphere. I have little interest in religion whatsoever, so I was not sure how much I would like it, but even if it did not do too much on an informative level, I still managed to suck in the atmospherically soothing touch of this film during several scenes. And it was sure fun to see Herzog interview the Dalai Lama, how humble both of them seemed and respectful towards the other and the general situation. I cannot deny I am a great Werner Herzog fan and it is always nice to see him narrate his films himself just like this one. His voice is always great to listen to. As a whole, this was not one of my favorite watches from Herzog, but that is really only because I have seen so much from him and because some of his other works are so great and this one is "only" good. I still recommend watching it. Thumbs for "Rad der Zeit". Go see it.

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tedg

Werner Herzog again.This time he is in his mode of creation more by discovery than invention, and it pays off.The raw material is striking by itself: vast numbers, ephemeral yearnings, trivial and essential rituals. Devotion in any endeavor is something we are drawn to, and there is plenty for our filmmaker to harvest.The essential part of this film is Herzog as camera during a gathering in India, where a variety of consecrations are planned. Monks and devotees come, some by difficult and humbling means. 400,000 faces (all attempting calmness) are miraculously organized, assembled to be led by the supreme priest.We see queues so orderly they could only exist among such beings, but anxious chaos when fighting for tossed goodies: dumplings and candies. We have zealots, order and peace.Into this sails Herzog. The story is that he had been cajoled into filming the much smaller gathering in Austria. Austria! He was reluctant to do so, and after the film remains firm in his belief that Austrian Buddhists don't make much sense to him. But with this commitment, he traveled to the gathering in a sacred place in India near Nepal.There he found a focus for his film in one of the rituals. Though it is presented as central to the gathering, it is only so in Herzog's vision. This holds that mysteries can be conveyed visually. The situation needs to support the vision, but the vision is the thing. It is not the symbol, the notation, the token, but the real thing. This is how he thinks of cinema and the way he presents the sand mandala carries this import.The "Wheel of Time" is one translation of a sand painting made for this type of gathering, as perfected and maintained by one of the groups in Tibet. Mandalas are movies and intended for meditation, as a structure existing between and shared by the mind of insight and the real world of color and structure. There is much to be said of them and cinema, but Herzog only could film this one (and its copy in Austria) as it is being made with colored sand and exhibited as devotees are rushed past it.He then went to Mount Kailash, Though this is a couple hundred miles away, he merges it seamlessly into the gathering of nearly half a million robed prayers. Here, he is able to make some magnificent images of the mountain, its waterways and the people ritualistically circumnavigating it. This is holiness he understands and the conflation of mountain and mandala works. As usual, the music adds great power. I believe that henceforth, I will associate that music with this devotion, though there is no relation other than Herzog chose to build his mandala of these sounds, this extract of natural rock and water, and these people. They would not recognize their devotions as shown here. (And some of this is staged.) But for me, it is a window into something more holy than they worship.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

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MisterWhiplash

Wheel of Time is a curious documentary crucially because of someone from the West, like myself, being privy to traditional customs and ceremonial practices that seem like they could be coming from another world. But, as one soon learns, this curiosity is strong because it IS apart of this world, and maybe the truest moment of clarity from the Dalai Lama himself comes when he states how the universe is really not owned by one country or apart of one mountain or other, but is in how an individual conceives it- the universe, the center of it, is in you, or at least your projection of what it is, which is not something collective but ultimately is. It's a very wise statement that will keep me pondering it over for a long time. Likewise, the Kalachakra mandala becomes like a metaphor for this ideal, of hundreds of thousands of people coming together for the purpose of- aside from getting priceless words from the Dalai Lama- being at inner peace with oneself, hence the universe.By the end of Wheel of Time I didn't know much more about Buddhism than I had going into it, which isn't any real fault on Herzog's end as a filmmaker; it doesn't illuminate and challenge the mind too much like other documentaries of the filmmaker, but it's also nevertheless unique in Herzog's cannon for what he does and doesn't take on with his subject(s). On the one hand, he's endlessly fascinated with ritual, with physical movements, of the masses of people who have gone on this pilgrimage from thousands of miles from all over the continent for this once-in-two-years event (this adds a dosage of climactic irony for what happens there- an 'illness'). It's anthropological to an extent, only it's not one of everyday culture so much as the unheeding devotion to a religion based around enlightenment, not suffering via a messiah or other. On the other hand, Herzog relies this time on just being a guy with a camera, moving around these swarms of people, and this time Herzog relents for the most part to "directing landscapes" as he usually does to just catching people's faces, their body language, and the instruments at their disposal (which are, usually, their own bodies, as in their bowing-type moves to attain a level, and crawling on ones hands and face across land for a purpose). It's actually, for Herzog, kind of conventional, bordering on being something one might expect for television.But this little note shouldn't discourage one from seeing the film, and whether you're a Buddhist or not it holds its own aura that provides moments almost akin to what the Dalai Lama wants for his pupils and followers. One's even reminded of Woodstock in comparison of a documentary that goes out of its way to show more-so the nature of the people who gather together, and the power of a gathering, than the actual acts themselves. On top of this, Herzog does the occasional focus on an individual (albeit a little sidetracked as it is during the climax) with a political prisoner released from China and allowed to finally "see" the Dalai Lama in person. And for Herzog fans who are always on the prowl for his 'adequate images', there's still a good few to go around here, like when he captures the mountains that the Tibetans go to in masses, or the final images, including one that is as haunting as anything Herzog's shot. It's a peaceful, brisk journey; not a great work, but not an insignificant one either.

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inkblot185

This film is an exploration of several Tibetan Buddhist rituals, and centers around an initiation in India attended by hundreds of thousands of Himalayan devotees, many of whom arrive after punishing pilgrimages that, in one case, took up to three and a half years. As Cinema this film excels. Herzog places himself in the midst of the throng. The faces he captures tell a thousand stories. Yet the actual stories are few and far between. There is a cool detachment in this film that gives it an anthropological feel. Herzog admitted in a live discussion after the screening that he had little familiarization with Buddhism, and reluctantly took this assignment after several requests only after the Dalai Lama himself personally asked him to do it. There is little to be learned here about the ritual itself, as the film focuses mostly on the attendees. Herzog seems uninterested in the meaning behind the sometimes strange-seeming actions of the devoted monks, and focuses instead on observation. While this is a smart approach for a film-maker on one hand, since any attempt to explain this complicated philosophical system would undoubtably fall short, I was left wanting more. If I can make a somewhat strange metaphor: it was like seeing a documentary on the Superbowl, which focused on Americans traveling from all over the country, standing in long lines, paying large sums of money to get in, drinking beer, shouting and cheering at the field, or shouting at television screens, waving strange banners around, and possibly braving rain, snow or blizzard to see it--without ever really going into what football is. Long shots of haggard faces and people doing "the wave" would be compelling to watch, but wouldn't give a true picture of the event. If you're interested in seeing a fly-on-the-wall observation of a very interesting and different aspect of the human experience, this film succeeds. But if you are interested in understanding the Kalachakra ritual, or learning more about Buddhism, then, like me, you'll be left unsatisfied. Perhaps the film is mistitled. The title, "Wheel of Time", somehow promised something different to me. A more apt title would be something like, "Naked Devotion".

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